


The K3y to Time

by MrProphet



Series: Doctor Susan [3]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 04:52:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10690104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet





	1. Tracer

“I just need  _time_ ,” Susan had insisted, but as usual no-one had listened. The Doctor joked about them having nothing but time and Ian and Barbara barely noticed that she had spoken. They were all having a splendid time, gadding about time and space in the TARDIS, waiting for him to build enough of a map of the universe to return them to Earth in the year 217AD. It never seemed to occur to them that Susan was not.

“Welcome to the Garazone bazaar!” the Doctor announced.

“Come and take a look around, Susan,” Barbara said. “The Doctor says you can find  _anything_  in the market here! Come and help us find a bargain.”

“I’d rather go off on my own,” Susan told her sister. “I just think I need a little time…”

“Best to keep together, my dear,” the Doctor warned. “The Garazone bazaar is a notorious den of thieves, fences, smugglers and other criminals.”

“Stay close,” Barbara cautioned. She caught hold of Susan’s hand. “Now come on.”

So Susan had dawdled along behind Ian and Barbara, while the Doctor roamed ahead, until the gaudy stalls of the market overwhelmed them and Barbara became distracted trying to cajole Ian into buying her a scarf – more as a principle than because she wanted the scarf – and Susan was able to slip away.

She wandered through the market, surrounded by noise and bustle and a haze of a thousand exotic scents, enjoying a rare moment of peace. She had spent the last three days cooped up in the TARDIS with the others, and she was thrilled to have a little space and time by herself; even if she had to share that space and time with a crowd of boisterous strangers. For all the Doctor’s claims regarding the ‘infinitely transcendent dimensions of the TARDIS interior, the truth was that the space-time capsule was still growing and could, as yet, barely have contained a decent-sized house. It was pretty impressive for a garden shed, but once the engines and the console room and the cloisters were accounted for, left precious little space for his crew.

Susan’s pocket communicated chirruped; clearly Barbara had finally noticed that she was missing. She ignored the device for a moment and then reached into her pocket and switched it off; she wasn’t ready to go back to her travelling companions.

She turned to look at one of the smaller stalls. An array of glittering tat was strewn across a table under a richly patterned awning. The merchant sat behind the stall, a small woman in dark, purple robes, her narrow, tanned face framed in a headscarf. The robes were richly patterned, but threadbare and worn with age.

As she idly examined the merchandise on display, Susan found her eye drawn to one particular object, a crystal wand about twenty-five centimetres in length. It was not especially pretty, but the way the crystal’s internal facets and flaws caught the light made it sparkle. She lifted the wand and held it up to the light, turning it over and over so that it shimmered and flickered like the reflections on the surface of a pond. She stared at the dancing light, fascinated, so that she barely noticed the handle of the wand growing warmer in her grip.

The lights coalesced and flared brilliantly within the crystal. Susan started back in shock and tried to drop the wand, but her fingers were unable to release their grip. The heat built and her hand began to throb. Susan cried out in alarm as the light blazed. 

She blinked, half-blinded, and shook her head to clear it. Slowly the coloured blobs faded and she stared at her hand; the wand was gone, but the lights now flickered under her skin.

*

The Doctor watched fondly as Ian and Barbara argued with a stall-holder over the price of a plasma wrench. Ian was so much like David, his several-times-great-grandfather, that it sometimes broke her hearts to look at him, but she enjoyed seeing him with Barbara. Despite her initial reserve, she was glad that the two girls had been caught aboard when the TARDIS first launched; not that she would ever tell them that. Thinking of Barbara and her sister, the Doctor glanced around to look for Susan; that was when she noticed.

Unwilling to disturb Ian and Barbara, the Doctor delved in one of the many pockets of her long coat for her communicator. She thumbed the actuator and selected Susan’s contact code on the screen. The indicator showed that the units had made contact, but Susan did not answer. The Doctor frowned in concern. Without the old Dalek relay towers the range of the device would be limited, but Susan could not have gone far.  
“Is there a problem, madam?”

The Doctor turned to face the speaker, a tall, lean man in a dapper suit of soft, cream linen which had somehow managed not to gather the least dirt from the market. His voice was much like his appearance; neat, trim and utterly controlled, the voice of a dedicated bureaucrat.

“Perhaps, yes,” the Doctor agreed. “Are you in authority here?”

The man gave a self-deprecating laugh. “No-one really controls the Garazone bazaar, Doctor,” he assured her, “but I may claim to some degree of seniority. I am by way of being the Superintendent.”

“I see. Well, I am looking for a young girl.”

“Is that so, madam? Well, if I might suggest the high western quarter; the slave markets…”

“No, no, no!” the Doctor snapped. “I am looking for a girl who came here with us and has gone astray. Perhaps you could help to look for her? Organise a search? Or,” she suggested, as Ian and Barbara approached, laden with their purchases, “you could simply tell me where she is.”

The Superintendent put a hand on his chest with an expression of shock. “I, Doctor? What makes you think that I know where your companion is?”

“Because I never told you that I was the Doctor.”

The Superintendent sighed. “Didn’t you? One does start to lose track of linearity at my age.” 

*

Susan’s head swam and she stumbled dizzily. She turned to leave the stall, but the merchant coughed softly. Susan turned and the merchant tapped a sign on the stall table.

ALL BREAKAGES MUST BE PAID FOR.

“I didn’t break anything.”

The merchant tapped another sign.

ANY ITEM RENDERED UNSALEABLE AS A RESULT OF CONTAMINATION, DEFORMATION, DISCOLOURATION, OR DEATH WILL BE CONSIDERED ‘BROKEN’.

“I didn’t do any of those things; the wand was just… absorbed into my hand.”

The merchant tapped the sign again.

ANY ITEM RENDERED UNSALEABLE AS A RESULT OF CONTAMINATION, DEFORMATION, DISCOLOURATION, ABSORPTION OR DEATH WILL BE CONSIDERED ‘BROKEN’.

Susan shook her head and immediately regretted it. “That didn’t say absorption before. You changed the sign.”

The merchant merely held out her hand.

Susan’s head was spinning and she felt sick; her vision blurred, the image of the merchant rocking back and forth and the background warping into a swirling tunnel of light and shade.  
“I can’t…” she gasped. “I won’t…” She stumbled away and crashed into another stall, then kept on stumbling along the narrow street, heading… she didn’t know where. 

At last she slumped against a narrow door which gave a little under her weight. Driven by a sudden need she threw herself against the wooden portal and, little by little, forced it open. She toppled helplessly from the heat and noise of the bazaar into the cool and quiet of a small, dark room. 

The chamber was octagonal and walled in stone. The ceiling was very high. The only light came from the door behind Susan and the skylight almost fifty feet above, which cast a dull pool of daylight around a statue of a robed figure, which held a book in one hand and a balance in the other. Smaller statues stood in alcoves about ten feet up, one in each wall, each figure robed and carrying a book.

Reeling under another attack of dizziness, Susan leaned back against the door and it slid closed. At once the last of the street noise was cut off and Susan sighed in relief. Here, finally, she could find a little time to herself.  
She stumbled towards the statue and tripped, falling headlong across the dusty floor. Her outstretched hand brushed against the pedestal of the statue as her senses faded into black. 

She did not see the statue begin to glow with the same, shimmering light as the crystal wand.

*

“Who are you?” the Doctor demanded.

“The Superintendent,” the old man replied. “For now that is sufficient. We must go quickly, your young friend is in danger.”

“Susan!” Barbara was appalled. “Where is she?”

“Come with me,” the Superintendent insisted. “You must come with me now.”

Ian lifted his new wrench and activated the plasma field. “Tell us where she is!”

“No, Ian,” the Doctor said calmly. “We can’t resort to violence every time we come up against an obstacle. Very well, ‘Superintendent’; lead the way.”

*

Susan woke to pain; her head was throbbing and her muscles ached terribly. She tried to stand, but discovered that the reason why her muscles ached was that she had been hogtied while unconscious.

“The blasphemer is awake!”

Susan groaned. “That doesn’t sound promising.”

Rough hands grabbed her and forced her to kneel; the ropes tore at her wrists and her shoulders burned. A man crouched in front of her and grabbed her by the hair. “Where is the statue, blasphemer?”

“I… I don’t know,” Susan moaned.

“We found you here, in the last shrine of Garaz, and the statue of the god was gone! Was it not enough that the Adherents of Garaz have been persecuted for so long by you Marketeers? How did you get inside?” the man demanded. “How did you take away the statue? Who were your accomplices?”

“I don’t know what you mean!” Susan cried. “The door was just open, and I don’t know what happened to the statue. It was here when I arrived.”

“The door was locked, as it always is!” The man was growing angry now. “Who were your accomplices?”

“I have no accomplices!” As the last of the fog left her, Susan tried to take in her surroundings. She was still in the octagonal chamber – the last shrine of Garaz, apparently – but the statue was indeed gone, pedestal and all, and the room was filled with figures in hooded habits. She counted at least four behind her interrogator, and the two who still held her upright.

“Quaestor,” one of the figures asked, addressing the interrogator, “how can she have stolen the statue if she remained here?”

“No doubt betrayed by her accomplices,” Quaestor sneered.

“Then why does she shield them?”

Quaestor spat out: “She is a Marketeer; one of those who have turned the palaces of Garaz into a place of trade and profit! No doubt some barbaric code holds her tongue.” He reached into his robe and drew out a long, narrow-bladed knife. “Let us see if this will help to loosen it.”

“No!” Susan screamed and squeezed her eyes tight shut as Quaestor loomed towards her. There was a soft gurgle and a warm mist washed over her. A moment later the shrine was filled with screams and movement as the Adherents of Garaz ran to and fro in a mad panic. Susan curled herself into a ball, fearing that she would be crushed, but as suddenly as the panic had started it ceased entirely.

Slowly, Susan uncurled. She was still surrounded by the robed Adherents, but they were frozen stock still, many of them in the very act of fleeing. As Susan rose – and as she realised that her hands and feet were now free – the door opened and…

“Doctor!” Susan pushed between the unyielding figures and flung herself into the old woman’s arms.

“Dear me, child,” the Doctor said. “What has happened to you? And what is this…?” Her grey blouse was smeared with red and when she touched Susan’s hair her fingers came away smeared in gore.

Before Susan could properly process events, Barbara pushed in and pulled her sister into a hug. Ian followed, a look of profound relief on his face, and behind him came a tall man in a cream suit whose face was oddly familiar.

The Superintendent looked at the red and sighed. “Did you really have to do that?” he asked.

“Dreadfully sorry, old man.” Four heads turned towards the new voice, a warm, cheeky baritone. The merchant in purple was sitting in one of the alcoves with her arm around the waist of the statue. “Pressure of the moment and all that.”

“Grandmother, who are they?” Ian demanded.

The Superintendent smiled superciliously. “I am afraid your grandmother could have no real idea who we are, boy.”

The Doctor’s smile was frosty. “Ian, Barbara, Susan; may I present the Spirit of Light in Time, otherwise known as the White Guardian, and ‘his’ counterpart, the Spirit of Darkness in Time, or Black Guardian.”

With a laugh the Black Guardian launched herself into space and floated gently to the ground. “Your face, old man,” she chuckled. “Not that he’s an old man, any more than I’m an old woman.”

“The Guardians exist at either end of a continuum,” the Doctor explained. “They hold all of Time between them, ensuring the balance between light and darkness; between…”

“Good and Evil?” Barbara asked.

“Order and Chaos,” the Black Guardian corrected.

“Oh yes, you never did like the term ‘evil’, did you?” the White Guardian scoffed. “A little too close to the bone, I suppose.”

The Black Guardian drew herself up to her full height – not much more than five feet – and retorted: “I don’t like to be called evil because it suggests that you are good.” She turned to face the Doctor and her companions.

“He’s not, you know; he’s just plain old, boring order; stasis and stagnation.”

“Better that than anarchy and dissolution,” the White Guardan retorted.

“Prude!”

“Parasite!”

“Enough!” The Doctor’s voice was shrill and fierce. “Susan; what happened here?”

“I don’t know,” Susan murmured, her face still pressed against her sister’s side. “I picked up a wand and it went into my hand and then I came in and they said I stole their statue and I don’t know!”

The White Guardian sighed. “You couldn’t wait, could you?”

The Black Guardian shrugged. “I didn’t make the girl leave the Doctor’s side. You know me; I don’t manipulate the way you do, setting up the dominos one by one, ready to fall. I’m an opportunist, and opportunity knocked.”

“What happened?” Barbara demanded.

The White Guardian fought down a look of irritation. “The ‘wand’ which your sister absorbed is in fact the core of the Key to Time,” he snapped.

“The what?” Ian asked.

“The Key to Time is a perfect cube formed of six, crystalline segments,” the Doctor replied. “The legends of Gallifrey say that, when assembled, the Key has the power to stop the universe…”

“…to restore the universal equilibrium to Time, or to destroy it completely,” the Black Guardian finished. “The six segments are ordinarily scattered throughout time and space, but in times of crisis, such as this, they must be collected and the Key assembled in order to put things right.”

“As if you care about putting things right you… harridan!”

“Autocrat!”

“What crisis?” the Doctor demanded. “And what has Susan got to do with this?”

“Susan picked up the core,” the Black Guardian explained. “Now she has become the tracer.”

“Tracer?” Barbara was growing angry.

“She will lead you to the segments and convert them,” the White Guardian said. “Her body will store them until they are all gathered. Until that time, they will protect her with their power.”

“No!” Barbara cried. “Get it out of her!”

“We can not,” the White Guardian replied. “The Guardians are not permitted to use the Key until it is assembled; the power of the segment she has already absorbed – the segment that was disguised as the last statue of the ancient godling Garaz – will keep us from doing anything to her.”

“What is the crisis?” the Doctor repeated. “What will happen if we do not find the Key?”

The Black Guardian sighed. “The near-detonation of a reality bomb in the Medusa Cascade has flooded the universe with waves of Z-neutrino energy.”

The Doctor’s face grew sombre. “Z-neutrinos? But the only race to use Z-neutrinos in their weapons…”

“Yes,” the White Guardian agreed. “And given time – less than a year – the Z-neutrino levels in the crystal segments themselves will rise to an untenable level. The Key will break down, universal harmony will be destroyed.”

“Which isn’t as much fun as it sounds,” the Black Guardian cackled.

“Doctor; can’t you do something?” Barbara begged.

The Doctor shook her head sadly. “The only thing we can do is find the Key before it is too late. You and Ian take Susan back to the TARDIS and get her cleaned up; I have a few choice words for the Guardians.”

“But…”

Ian put his hands on Barbara’s shoulders. “Come on,” he said softly. “She’ll be safe in the TARDIS. Nothing can get to her in there.”

Barbara smiled at him gratefully and the three of them walked out of the shrine and away through the market stalls.

“Will you tell them, Doctor?” the Black Guardian asked.

“Tell them what?”

The old woman grinned toothlessly. “That to a Guardian of Time the shell of a TARDIS – especially one as… makeshift as yours – is as permeable as smoke.”

The Doctor frowned at the Black Guardian. “Listen to me,” she said firmly. “You want me to find your Key – just as my grandfather and I once searched for the Keys of Marinus…”

“And as your grandfather twice – or was it… will it be three times? – searched for the Key to Time before,” the White Guardian interrupted.

“I will search, but I want your promise that my companion will be safe at the end of that search.”

“Of course,” the White Guardian said.

The Black Guardian’s grin widened horribly. “How could you think otherwise?”

“And that you will not interfere with my search in any way.”

The White Guardian nodded. “Agreed.”

“Agreed,” the Black Guardian echoed, “unless you ask for assistance from one or both of us. Now, hurry long Doctor. With the universe in its current state, even my dear brother can not freeze these cultists indefinitely and it would upset him so if I had to start evaporating people again.”

The Doctor pulled her cape around her and drew herself up. “I shall be on my way at once. The sooner this is over with, the better I will like it.”

The White Guardian smiled. “Remember, Doctor. You can  _ask_  for our help if ever you want it.”

The Doctor turned and swept away. “I just need time,” she assured them.


	2. The Hawk of Albia

The TARDIS door opened on a scene of noise and fury. Susan, still covered in a sticky film of blood-spray, was kicking and screaming and struggling to reach the control console, while Barbara and Ian clung to her arms.

“I won’t do it!” Susan screamed. “I won’t be their tracer!”

The Doctor hurried in. “What is this?” she demanded. “Fighting in the console room? The TARDIS exists in a state of temporal grace, and just because that doesn’t prevent you throwing a punch is no reason to feel that permits this kind of fracas!”

Her tone had a powerful effect, freezing her three companions where they stood.

“Now,” she said. “What is going on?”

“I won’t be a stupid Key detector!” Susan exclaimed.

“Susan tried to set the controls,” Ian explained. “She wanted to take off.”

“So let her,” the Doctor scoffed. “She can’t do any harm. The flight controls are isoresonant; only a time-sensitive can even move them.”

“Well, she was moving them,” Barbara assured her. 

“What?” The Doctor hurried over and examined the controls. “She’s set the coordinates!” she gasped. “Not terribly well, but if she’d pulled the take-off lever she would have dematerialised the TARDIS, leaving me in the Garazone Market.”

“What have they done to my sister, Doctor?” Barbara begged.

The Doctor laid her hand on Susan’s cheek and gazed into her eyes. “Such power in so small a frame,” she said softly.

“I am not  _small_!” Susan bucked in Ian and Barbara’s grasps and lashed out with her feet, striking the console, knocking the take-off lever and triggering the dematerialisation cycle. The TARDIS rocked violently into motion and almost as suddenly lurched wildly to a halt, flinging her crew across the control room in a tangled heap.

Susan – younger than the others, more flexible and more resilient – recovered first. She grabbed the door control and yanked it downward so hard that it ripped out of its socket. As the doors swung open she sprinted through, while her sister and Ian were still scrambling to their feet. Ian stooped to help his grandmother up, but the Doctor waved him back.

“Go after her!” she insisted. “The child is afraid and confused, and also carrying a fragment of the greatest power in the universe within her body!”

Barbara was already on her way out of the door.

“Go!” the Doctor repeated when Ian dithered. “I’ll have to repair the door control and see what other damage the girl has done; I’ll be here when you bring her back.”

After only a moment’s hesitation, Ian turned and ran out after Barbara.

*

The TARDIS had landed in a rocky ravine which split and forked into half a dozen gullies less than a hundred yards away. The landscape was dotted with great, grey boulders, providing a hundred hiding places for a girl of Susan’s ability. A childhood in the poorer quarters of AD London gave one plenty of opportunity to learn how to run and hide, and only those who learned the lessons well could make a decent living scavenging in the wrecks. 

Barbara and Susan had made an excellent living. Susan could run like a hare and squeeze her lean, teenage frame into spaces which seemed absurdly small. Barbara knew that her sister could have gone in any one of a dozen directions or be hiding just a few yards away.

“Susan!” she called desperately, and then headed off along what seemed the likeliest path.

Ian ran after her, but she was faster than he was. “Barbara, wait!” He rounded a bend in the gully and ran straight into Barbara, who was standing in a state of desperation at a junction of five more paths.

“Where is she?” Barbara cried.

“I don’t know,” Ian told her, “but she’ll be trying to avoid us. We should go back to the TARDIS and wait. She’ll come back when she calms down and, if she doesn’t, we can use the TARDIS scanner to trace her communicator.”

“If it’s switched on,” Barbara retorted. “And what if she’s fallen and is hurt.”

Ian nodded. “If she fell she’ll still be close by. We’ll search the area around the TARDIS carefully while Grandmother repairs the controls. Then we’ll scan for Susan’s communicator, if she hasn’t come back on her own. Alright?”

“Alright,” Barbara agreed reluctantly.

*

As soon as she left the TARDIS, Susan doubled back and ducked into the shelter of a rock. She watched from hiding as Barbara and Ian ran off and only then did she scramble off along a completely different gully. She ran blindly, spurred on by fear and anger; fear of the strange artefacts which had fused with her flesh and anger at the entire universe: at the Guardians for making her into a tool; at her sister and their friends for allowing it to happen.

In her desperate flight, Susan did not see the cross-gully until it was too late. Even as her brain struggled to process the information her foot came down on air and she fell, bouncing hard against each wall of the narrow cleft in turn as she slid painfully to the bottom. Her foot twisted as she landed and pain shot through her ankle. She tried to cry out, but the breath had been knocked out of her.  
Susan gave a soft cry and surrendered to unconsciousness.

*

Ian and Barbara searched in all directions, but came no closer than a hundred yards from the hidden ravine where Susan lay. Disconsolate, they made their way back to the TARDIS. Hesitantly, Ian put an arm around Barbara. He half expected her to push him away, but instead she leaned gratefully into him.

“I should have stayed with her on Garazone,” she said.

“Grandmother was afraid of the Guardians,” Ian told her. “She hid it well, but I’ve known her… all my life. If she was afraid of them then they would have found a way, whatever we’d done. All she had to do was touch the core, remember.”

“I know, but still… I’m all she’s ever had. After Dad died, when Mum knew she wouldn’t survive the birth, she made me promise to look after Susan.” Barbara gave a bitter laugh. “Nice job I’ve made of it so far; taking her into the wrecks and the wastelands after lost technology and introducing her to every blackmarketeer and dodgy tech trader in London.”

“You’ve done a great job with her,” Ian promised. “She’s reckless, but then she’s young. Even Grandmother rates her, and she doesn’t like anyone much.”

“She likes you.”

“I’m family. Seriously, Barbara; she likes you both. Same as I…”

“Quiet!”

Ian blushed. “I’m sorry, I know it’s not the right time to…”

“No! Shut up!” Barbara insisted. “Can’t you hear it?”

Ian stopped and listened intently. “Someone running.”

“This way!” Barbara set off at a run, one hand delving inside her long, canvas coat. 

Ian ran after her, envying as well as admiring her speed and strength. He was a child of the city – educated, technically adept – but Barbara and Susan had grown up in the borderlands, daring the perils of the wrecks to scavenge technology for people like Ian and the Doctor. They were strong and fast; wary as rabbits and fierce as lions.

Up ahead a slight figure burst out of a gully and began running towards them. It – she – was the right size for Susan, but her hair was shorter and blonde, and she was wearing military boots and dark grey fatigues. Barbara must have seen that it wasn’t Susan, but she was already set on a course of action. When the soldier appeared behind the girl, Barbara’s arm came up fast and metal flickered through the air.

The soldier fell back, dropping his rifle to clutch at the blade in his shoulder, but a second man appeared in his wake and Ian wasn’t sure how many knives Barbara had.  
“Run!” he shouted. “Back to the TARDIS!”

*

Susan woke to the sound of gunshots, propped up between the rocks in the narrow gully base. Her ankle was still throbbing, but when she eased her way out to where she had room to move it was able to take her weight with only a little discomfort. Warily, she began to make her way – as best she was able to figure it – towards the TARDIS.

 

Barbara’s second knife flew as the soldier opened fire. He twisted away, firing wildly into the air, as the blade creased his cheek, but Barbara staggered to a halt and fell to her knees.  
With a scream of fury, Ian leaped at the startled soldier, pummelling the man with his fists. “Get her out of here!” he yelled to the girl. “Down the gully! The shed!”

 

As she approached the junction with a larger gully, Susan saw a man crouching behind a boulder. He was bleeding from a wound in his leg and from the way he was leaning on the rock for support it was clear that he was about to pass out.

Susan hurried forward and caught him as he fell. “It’s alright…” she began, but he interrupted with a sharp groan of: “Keep down!” and pulled her against the boulder as a line of soldiers trooped past.  
“Get away,” the young man hissed. “They’re after me, not you.”

 

The Doctor lay on her back, working on the underside of the console. She hear the clatter of footsteps on the control room floor and frowned. “Ian, are you wearing army boots?”

“Doctor, the door!” Barbara cried weakly.

The Doctor frowned, reached into the control box and managed to flick the broken base of the lever so that the doors swung closed.

“Get ready to…” Barbara broke off with a scream. “Not yet! Open them, open them!”

The Doctor fumbled in the box but with the switch up she could no longer reach what remained of the lever. “I can’t,” she gasped.

“But Ian’s still out there!” Barbara cried, and then she fell headlong to the deck with blood pouring from her scalp.

Ian crashed into the TARDIS door as it closed. He pounded his fist against the wood. “Open the door, Grandmother! Open the door!”

The Doctor struggled to her feet. There was a strange woman in a grey uniform standing over Barbara, and no sign of either Ian or Susan. “Who…?” she began, but then shook her head. “Never mind; just stand over there.” She pushed the girl impatiently to one side of the console room and began wrestling with the controls. “Come on, girl,” she muttered. “Didn’t I lavish enough love on your creation?” She ran to the wall cabinet and ripped it open, grappling for her toolkit.

“Grey switch on the panel there!” she called, pointing. “Yes, you!” she snapped when the girl didn’t move. “Grey switch, halfway up. Twist it!”

As the Doctor dug through the tools, the girl nervously approached the console and tweaked the switch to activate the scanner. On the screen, Ian pounded on the TARDIS door.

The Doctor finally found the eighteen-inch screwdriver and ran back to the control box. She bent down and thrust the screwdriver into the box, jiggling it to find the hollow shaft of the broken lever. She glanced up one last time and saw three soldiers grab Ian and drag him away from the door.

“No!” The Doctor levered the screwdriver down and the doors swung open. She moved towards the opening, but a burst of gunfire sent bullets ricocheting around the control room. Sparks flew from the central column and the Doctor threw herself to the deck. 

The girl hurled herself at the console and pushed the screwdriver up again. “There’s nothing we can do for him!”

The Doctor rounded on her. “Oh, isn’t there? Hmm? We shall see about that, child.” She glanced at the scanner, and at the five soldiers now surrounding the door.

“They’ll bring rockets and blasting charges,” the girl said. “I shouldn’t have come in… here.” She stared around in amazement, suddenly comprehending the difference between the interior and exterior dimensions of the TARDIS. “What…?”

“Where will they take him?” the Doctor demanded. “Where will they take my grandson?”

“To… to the Camp. It’s the closest military base.”

The Doctor began to work the controls. “How close and which direction.” She demanded.

“About five kemets poleward-by-turn,” the girl replied. “I’m…”

“Poleward by…” The Doctor moved to another panel of the console. “Yes, that’s… And a kemet? How tall are you?”

“Three mets.”

“And a kemet is how many mets?”

“One-thousand and twenty-four.”

“Of course, of course; a base of two.” The Doctor returned to the flight controls and finished her settings.

*

Susan pressed close to the rock until the tramping of military boots had faded into the distance. At last she sighed in relief and allowed herself to relax. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I’m Susan. Susan Tyler.”

“Hestryl,” the young man replied.

“Your leg looks bad,” Susan told him. “Let me look.” She crouched and examined the wound. “Bullet?”

“One of the guards took exception to my leaving the Camp,” Hestryl explained. “But you…” He touched her face, smeared with blood and dust.

Susan moved her head away. “It’s not mine.” As quickly as she could, she tied a bandage around Hestryl’s wound. “It’s clean and the bullet went straight through, but you need to get it stitched up properly. If we go back to…” She broke off as a distant groaning, wheezing sound echoed along the gully. “The TARDIS!” she cried.

“Quiet, Susan,” Hestryl hissed.

“But that was the TARIS,” Susan groaned, “I’m sure of it. They’ve left without me!”

Hestryl laid a hand on her shoulder. “Come on then. You can come back to camp with me and we can try to find out where your friends have gone.”

“You don’t understand,” she sobbed. “If they’re gone… They could be anywhere. Anywhere in time and space.”

*

Barbara’s wound was bloody but shallow. The Doctor carefully taped it closed before asking: “How are you, child?”

“Ian?” Barbara asked. “Susan?”

“Ian has been captured and brought to an internment and labour camp,” the Doctor replied. “I’ve landed the TARDIS inside the camp – I still haven’t managed to get the chameleon circuit functioning, but fortunately the Camp is hardly undersupplied with sheds – and persuaded Chei to look around and see where they’re hiding him.”

“Chei?”

“Skinny girl, dressed like a soldier,” the Doctor explained. “She carried you in here.”

“Yes!” Barbara gasped. “They were chasing her. Ian told her to take me back here and… But what about Susan?”

“I can not contact her,” the Doctor admitted. “Either her communicator was damaged or she still has it switched off. Once we have Ian, we’ll go back and find her, I promise.”

“She’s just a child!”

“I understand, my dear, really I do, but Ian is held by these brutes.”

“Brutes?” Barbara asked.

“This is Albia, on a planet called Thes. It’s ruled by a military council with the traditional fist of iron. The Camp is a death sentence by any other name; part mine, part factory, part torture chamber, hundreds of miles from civilisation in the middle of a desert. Only the shelter of the ravines in this mesa make it barely habitable.”

Barbara nodded. “And Ian… Of course, Doctor; we have to get him out.”

“Fortunately for us, most of the security is on the perimeter,” the Doctor assured her. “Getting Ian out would be next to impossible, but we only need to get him into a shed; hmm.”

“Alright. What do you need me to do?”

*

The soldiers were not gentle with Ian. He was dragged away from the sanctuary of the TARDIS, knocked down, kicked and beaten with rifle butts. Just before he was knocked unconscious he looked up and saw the TARDIS dematerialising.

He came around to find himself immobile; cuffed into a steel chair with bands of metal. He was left for at least an hour before an officer came in to question him, resplendent in a peaked cap and a military greatcoat that flowed around him as he strutted.

“So, the resistance has a new weapon,” the officer said. “What was it? Some kind of projected image, concealing your comrades’ escape?”

“Yes; that’s it,” Ian agreed.

“And yet you and our troops were able to touch it.”

“Forcefields.”

The officer sniffed disdainfully. “What was it?”

“My grandmother’s garden shed,” Ian replied.

The officer snapped the fingers of one gloved hand and a soldier pushed in a trolley. The officer made a great show of examining the array of knives, scalpels and probes on the trolley.

“What is your name?” the officer asked.

“Ian Campbell; and you?”

“I am Sharka.”

Ian looked blankly at the man. “Should I know you?”

Sharka tried to hide a flash of annoyance and failed. He turned away and picked up a scalpel. “Oh, you will do,” he promised. “You will know me well when I am finished with you.”

*

Hestryl’s camp was located in one of the larger ravines, hidden by a wooded overhang. It was in many ways an impressive sight; row upon row of tents and dozens of soldiers in khaki uniforms moving to and fro, training and maintaining weapons and other gear. As they were escorted in by a sentry, Susan supported Hestryl, who pointed proudly to the armoury and the training ground and the kites of the airborne squadron.

“Not heavily armoured, but the guards at the Camp never even look up,” he explained. “They don’t think we can get aircraft and artillery past the desert patrols, and they’d be right if we used powered craft or cars. We brought all of this in, piece by piece, in wagons and by bicycle.”

“Bicycle?” Susan laughed.

“Honestly.” Hestryl frowned. “What is it you keep staring at?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Susan assured him, tearing her eyes away.

“What?”

“Just… I like your badge,” she admitted. I don’t know, it’s just… I really like it.”

Hestryl carefully adjusted the hawk’s-head emblem pinned to his lapel. “My family crest,” he explained. “Ah; and this is the medical centre. I think a stop is in order.” He turned to the sentry. “Gather the captains, corporal. It’s time.”

“Yes, Hawk,” the sentry replied with a short salute.

Susan looked at Hestryl. “Are you in charge around here?” she asked.

“I suppose I am,” he agreed. “For my sins. But only because you saved my life. I won’t forget that.” 

Susan helped him into the tent which housed the camp’s hospital. She guided him to a bed and watched as a doctor removed her bandages.  
“I hope that you find your friends,” Hestryl said, “but if not, you’ll have a place here if you want it.” He touched his badge. “You have my word on it.”   
  
Barbara and the Doctor saw Chei on the scanner and opened the door using the screwdriver which now seemed permanently lodged in the place of the control lever.

“Were you able to find him?” the Doctor asked.

Chei nodded, her face stricken. “He is in the interrogation centre, with Sharka.”

“Sharka?” Barbara was nonplussed.

“The most feared torturer in the Military Corps,” Chei told them. “He is a ruthless and vicious man; utterly without mercy.”  
Barbara’s face grew pale. “And he has Ian?”

Chei nodded sadly.

“Then we must recue him,” the Doctor insisted. “Chei; am I right in thinking that you were sent here by some manner of resistance to reconnoitre the Camp?”

“Yes,” Chei admitted. “How did you…?”

“Never mind, never mind; but in that case, you must have paid particular attention to the detention and ‘interrogation’ areas, yes?”

“Yes, but…”

“Excellent! Then you and Barbara can affect a rescue.”

“But my head…” Barbara began to protest.

“All well now,” the Doctor assured her. “The air inside the TARDIS is very conducive to health.” She reached out and ripped away the tape to reveal nothing worse than a scar. “Temporal grace, you see; or rather you don’t, so why not just take my word for it, eh.”

“Alright.”

“Yes; now I’m far too old for any rescuing, but keep your communicator with you and I can guide you from the TARDIS if need be. For the most part the scanner only shows the area around the TARDIS – I didn’t have the parts for anything with more range – but I have managed to map the buildings and I can track external patrols.” She adjusted the scanner controls so that the screen showed this map. “I’ll also be able to alert you if I need to move the TARDIS.” She patted the console. “Fortunately the girl seems rather happier than many of her kind with making short spatial hops.”

“Have you any weapons?” Chei asked.

“Always found weapons rather vulgar,” the Doctor admitted. “I won’t let any of my companions carry a gun, although I think Barbara has one in her room and I never can convince her not to tote half a dozen knives everywhere.”

“They come in handy,” Barbara insisted.

“I can vouch for that,” Chei agreed.  
The Doctor sighed. “I doubt my grandfather ever had this trouble.” She dug in one of the pockets of her coat until she found a slim, silver rod. “Barbara, take my sonic screwdriver; it may come in handy. You’ll have to find weapons outside if you want them. 

“Now be off with you; while my grandson still has all his pieces.”

*

Ian could feel the blood running down his neck, his torso and arms. His head was throbbing and he was losing the feeling in his hands.

“Where is the resistance base?” Sharka asked.

“I… don’t know,” Ian gasped. “I’m not from your planet.”

“A transparent lie!” Sharka snapped. “I will have the truth out of you, boy, if I have to cut it out, inch by inch!”

“It’s not… a lie.”

“Oh, you are a foolish youth.” Sharka took from his trolley a long, barbed probe. “But experience breeds wisdom, given time.”

*

Susan watched as Hestryl and his captains planned their attack on the Camp. All there deferred to Hestryl without question, and not merely because his reconnaissance mission made him the best informed of the commanders.

“It’s my family,” he explained when the others had departed to prepare. “Once, we were the royal rulers of Albia, and good kings and queens we made; so good that, when my grandfather dissolved the monarchy in favour of a republic, he was voted president twice. 

“But then the Military Corps took power, overthrowing the legitimate government; rigging elections and eventually replacing the republic with their council.” He stood, leaning heavily on a stick. “For the last fifty years the resistance has laboured to smuggle dissidents and refugees out of Albia, but the most important have been kept in the Camp. Now, at last, we have a chance to rescue them and strike a real blow against the power of the Corps.”

“You’re not going with them?”

“I must!”

“But you’re injured.”

“I can walk and I can shoot,” he assured her. “Don’t worry; I won’t try to fly one of the kites.” He smiled at her. “You could come with me; keep me safe.”  
Susan thought for a moment. “Alright,” she agreed.

*

Barbara stepped around a corner into plain sight of a pair of sentries. “Hello,” she said brightly. “I’m lost, helpless and pretty; whatever could happen next.”

The sentries looked at her and then at each other and then back at her. As one they moved to seize her and Chei moved up behind them. The Albian girl struck one sentry over the head while Barbara stepped in to punch the second in the face.

“Well struck,” Chei said. She bent down and stripped off one of the soldiers’ greatcoats. “This is the rear door of the detention and interrogation block, but we’ll need to find an officer. These goons won’t have the access codes; they just guard the door, they don’t use it.”

“Wait a moment,” Barbara insisted. She took the sonic screwdriver from her pocket and held it up to the lock. “I’ve seen the Doctor use this device before.”

“What does it do?”

The screwdriver emitted a long, shrill note and the door slid away into its frame. “It opens doors.” Barbara grinned, and behind her an armoury block exploded.

*

The resistance approached the Camp from poleward, where the defence was weakest. Hovering beneath their kites the airborne troops wielded targeting devices which allowed the artillery – light surface-to-surface missiles and semi-guided howitzers – to strike accurately at the guard towers and armoury. As the defending troops turned their eyes skywards the kites fell away and the ground force advanced.

“Forward!” Hestryl ordered, hobbling toward the perimeter with Susan at his side. “Onward!”

On the surviving stockade a soldier turned his rifle on the enemy leader. Susan cried a warning and stepped in front of Hestryl just as the rifle fired.

*

Sharka turned from Ian, strode to the door and ripped it open. “What is…?”

Barbara’s punch drove him back into the room.

“You have a fine jab,” Chei noted.

“It’s been said before.” Barbara grinned as she aimed the sonic screwdriver at Ian’s restraints. The cuffs sprang open and Ian staggered to his feet. He stumbled over to Sharka and snatched a blade from the trolley. The interrogator cringed away from him.

“No, Ian!” Barbara cried. She reached out and touched his shoulder. “Don’t,” she pleaded.

After a tense moment, Ian roared in fury and hurled the knife aside. He bent down and punched his torturer once.

“Quickly!” Chei called. “The attack will hit this block soon and my comrades will not know you, Barbara.”

*

As the smoke cleared over the Camp, the resistance organised the prisoners into groups for the trek to their headquarters. Barbara half-carried Ian back to the TARDIS, where the ‘healthy’ air of the control room soon revived him enough to feel the pain of his many small injuries.

“That bastard made a real mess of him,” Barbara sobbed. She stood back and watched as the Doctor administered an injection to ease the pain.

“We’ll put him in his cabin now,” the Doctor suggested.

Before Barbara could move to help, her communicator bleeped. She dithered for a moment, but the Doctor waved her away and she activated the communicator. “Susan?”

“ _Is this Barbara Tyler?_ ”

Barbara frowned on hearing an unknown, male voice on her sister’s channel. “Yes.”

“ _If you’re still anywhere near the Albian mesa, I think you need to come here, quickly._ ”

*

Chei threw herself at Hestryl and hugged him. “You made it,” she sighed.

“And you,” he replied, squeezing her tightly. “When you ran out…”

Chei stroked his face. “I had to protect you, Hawk.”

“I wish you wouldn’t…”

Barbara could not wait any longer. “Where’s my sister?”

Hestryl looked up. “You’re Barbara? She’s over here.”

Susan was lying at the base of a wall, leaning against the stone. The front of her shirt was torn and bloody.

“Susan!” Barbara threw herself down beside her sister and grabbed her hand. Susan’s skin was cool and clammy. “What’s wrong with her?” she demanded of Hestryl.

“Mostly shock,” he assured her. At the same moment Susan’s hand tightened on Barbara’s. “One of the bullets grazed her shoulder, but the others…”

“Others!”

“They just… bounced,” Susan whispered. “I could feel them. They hit me and they bounced off my body.”

Barbara put a finger through one of the holes in the blouse and touched Susan’s unbroken skin. Her flesh tinged where it met her sister’s. “It must be the segment inside you,” she whispered. “The Guardians said it would protect you.” She stroked Susan’s hair. “Come back to the TARDIS. We’ll sort this out, I promise.”

Susan nodded. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Sorry for running away and…”

“Shh. It’s alright. I hope everything works out for you, Chei; and thank you for looking after her, Hestryl.”

“Much good I did,” Hestryl sighed. “People keep trying to die for me; for this.” He plucked the hawk badge from his chest. “I think this should go to someone else now. Susan; will you take the Hawk of Albia?”

“I… I’d be honoured,” Susan assured him.

Hestryl pinned the badge to her jacket, but the moment he did so it began to glow.

“What is it doing?” Barbara demanded.

“I don’t know! It’s never done it before.”

The glow expanded and for a moment the badge changed into the form of a crystalline polyhedron, before the glow sank into Susan’s body. Her chest, neck and left arm glowed for a moment and then she was just Susan.

Barbara smiled. “I guess you’re only part indestructible.”

“And I guess I really can’t get away from this,” Susan replied. “We’d better get on with it then, I suppose.”

“Sure,” Barbara agreed, glancing at a group of prisoners. “Just one thing I need first.”

*

“All done?” the Doctor asked.

“Yes,” Barbara replied. “Can you help Susan to set the controls. I’ll check on Ian.”

The Doctor nodded to the bundle in Barbara’s arms. “What is that?” she asked.

“A present.” 

Barbara walked through the control room and along the passage, turned right and took the first door on the left. Like all of their rooms aboard the TARDIS it was as yet only sparsely furnished, but seemed more suited to Ian than Barbara and Susan’s was to them. She supposed that, being part Time Lord, Ian was more closely attuned to the TARDIS.

“Hey,” she whispered, settling at his side. Gently, she spread Sharka’s coat across him like a blanket.

“Hey,” he croaked in return. “A big, flowy coat? I never had a big flowy coat before.”

“It’s a hero’s coat.” She squeezed his hand gently. “He didn’t deserve it. You do.”


	3. Serpents of Eden

The TARDIS wheezed and groaned and the centre column settled to a halt. The Doctor patted the console lovingly. “Well done, girl,” she said approvingly. “Now…” She flipped switches and checked the monitors for a moment, before activating the scanner to show an image of blue sky, golden sand and azure seas.

“It’s beautiful!” Susan gasped.

“Just as I remember it,” the Doctor agreed. “My grandfather brought us to Kestilla when we were travelling with my teachers; it was a paradise, and unlike most of the paradises we visited, quite free from monsters. Ian and your sister will be quite safe recuperating here while we go in search of the third section of the Key to Time.”

“Can’t they just stay in the TARDIS?” Susan asked.

“I rather doubt it,” the Doctor replied. “Neither of them is happy being passive; this way they can work off their energy by swimming and running and… Well, actually in their current condition I suppose it might be wiser to keep to strolling along the shore, but they won’t be left in the TARDIS and feel tempted to come out after us and ‘help’.” She shot the young girl a conspiratorial wink and Susan giggled. “I’ll do one more scan to make sure nothing more-than-humanly evil is around; why don’t you go and get the others. Oh, and don’t tell them we’re just dropping them off to keep them out of trouble.”

“Then what should I tell them?”

“You’re a smart girl, Susan; you’ll think of something.”

*

“Split up?” Ian asked.

Susan nodded. “To make the search go faster. There’s a segment of the Key on this planet; if you can look for it, the Doctor and I can go on to the next and come back to pick you up.”

“Come back?” Barbara was unsure. “I thought the Doctor didn’t have enough of a road map to travel to particular places?”

“She doesn’t,” Susan agreed, “but the TARDIS can still backtrack accurately by following her own temporal wake. We can go to the next place, find a segment and use the fast return switch; easy. At worst we’ll be back a couple of days after we drop you off.”

“What’s this place like?” Ian asked. “And what are we looking for?”

“Oh, um… it’s sort of jungly. I packed a few things in a bag for you.” Susan took them by an arm each and began steering them towards the control room. “Could be dangerous, that’s why the Doctor said to send you. ‘Too dangerous for you and an old thing like me would only be in the way,’ she said. Isn’t that right Doctor?”

“Oh, absolutely,” the Doctor agreed, shutting off the scanner. “Well, no time to waste. Hurry up, hurry up.” 

She moved behind the trio and propelled Ian and Barbara forward. Susan ducked away from them, snatched up a bag and thrust it into Barbara’s hands before running back to the door control. She opened the doors and closed it again the moment the Doctor had pushed Ian and Barbara out.

Ian squinted in the bright sun of a shining, golden beach. “This isn’t a jungle,” he noted. He turned back to the TARDIS, but the time machine was already vanishing with a grinding, wheezing noise. “Wait!”

“We’ve been suckered,” Barbara growled.

*

Susan laughed uncontrollably. “We did it!”

“Yes, my dear; we did.”

“Ditched them on Kestilla.”

“Well, something like that.”

“What?”

The Doctor focused on the controls. “That planet… It was quite safe, but it wasn’t Kestilla. Sorry.”

Susan was aghast. “Are you certain we can get back?” she pressed.

“Have no fear about that. The fast return follows the TARDIS wake and the wake remains not merely the clearest, but also the easiest passage through the Vortex for almost a month after landing. It is the one system in the ship that is quite utterly infallible. Except for me.”

“Oh. Good.”

“Come; your turn. Time to set the coordinates for the next segment.”

Susan nodded. “Although I don’t really know how I did it.”

“It’s alright. Just work the controls; the tracer will guide you and wherever we go it will add to the TARDIS database. Our next flight will be more accurate.”

“Then… here goes nothing.” Susan set the controls and pulled the flight lever.

The TARDIS responded with silence.

“There went nothing.”

The Doctor reached over and opened the helmic regulator. The central column ground into motion and the TARDIS was in flight. “Now, there are various additional controls to keep the TARDIS steady in flight, but only a few

of them. 

“Early TT capsules had full, manual control; they needed half-a-dozen pilots and twice that many engineers to fully regulate the systems. By the time they built the Type-40 I based this capsule on, many of the systems had been telepathically slaved to the autonomic functions of the TARDIS consciousness. You’d have to run a Type-40 – or anything later – for centuries, without any kind of experienced maintenance, before you needed a full complement to control it and I incorporated a few refinements from my studies of capsules up to the Type-51.” She sighed. “Now that was a beautiful machine, but no. ‘Faddish’ indeed.”

“Doctor?”

“Sorry; old memories.” The TARDIS shook. “Quickly; check the time path indicator and read off the deflection, then adjust the gravitic anomaliser to compensate. So.”

Susan followed her directions and the shaking stopped.

“Very good.” The column shuddered to a halt. “Now; let’s see where we are.”

*

“We’re on Bethselamin,” Barbara reported, “a paradise planet. There are jungles – the storekeeper went into flights about the sheer beauty of them – but they’re on another continent. I guess the Doctor made a mistake.”

“Guess again.” Ian opened the bag Susan had given them. It was stuffed with beach towels, swimsuits and bottles of suntan lotion. “Hopefully we’ve got some money that they’ll accept here, because your sister only packed girl’s clothes.”

“They seem to take our currency.” Barbara handed him an ice cream. “Or at least the currency Susan dropped into my pocket.” She dropped to the sand next to Ian. “We’ve been tricked into a holiday.”

Ian sighed. “Damn them.”

“I guess they don’t trust you not to strain yourself if they throw you right back into the fray. You were pretty beat up; not to mention cut up.”

“You were shot,” Ian pointed out.

“I know; I think I might have used up the TARDIS’s healing… nanites, biogenic fields; whatever. You know, whatever your grandmother said, that TARDIS is far from the ultimate travelling machine.”

“She’s young,” Ian replied defensively. “She’ll grow; she is growing. She never used to have a medical wing.” He licked his ice cream thoughtfully. “And I don’t think  _my_  injuries were life threatening.” He smiled across at her. “I’d rather be in pain than in mourning.”

Barbara smiled. “Softy.” She put an arm around his waist and leaned gently against his side. “The sun’s still on its way up; it’s going to be a lovely day.”

*

On the scanner a scene unfolded of howling winds, which blasted over arid ground and drove dust particles against the outer shell of the TARDIS at speeds of almost a hundred miles per hour. Had the capsule been merely the wooden shed it appeared it would have been ripped into sawdust in a matter of seconds and the readouts insisted that the crew would last little longer.

“The third segment couldn’t have been on a paradise world, of course,” Susan sighed.

“Now, now, my dear,” the Doctor chided, “we must bear up as best we can. I laid in plenty of supplies, including a set of hazardous environment suits that the Daleks used. They were designed to let a slave work a ‘useful’ period in close proximity to a Dalekanium power core, so a little dust shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Except that I have to touch the segment – whatever it is – with my bare hand.”

“Hmm? Oh, yes.” The Doctor went to the storage locker – originally an old sideboard, but now an integral part of the control room – and retrieved a hammer. She walked back to the console.

“What’s that for?” Susan asked and then the Doctor brought the hammer down hard on Susan’s left hand. Susan shrieked and snatched her fingers away. She cradled her hand to her chest and startled back in horror, but slowly relaxed as she realised: “It doesn’t hurt.”

“The segments are part of you,” the Doctor explained, “protecting you. Barbara said that the energy entered your right arm, so…”

“My left arm!” Susan cried. “That’s my left arm; it went into my left arm!”

“Really?” The Doctor cocked her head on one side. “Well, isn’t that a piece of luck.” She turned back to the controls.

Susan grew pale. “Never do that again,” she whispered.

The Doctor kept working for a long moment before saying: “I don’t think I should do that again.”

“Thank you.”

The Doctor went back to the locker. “Now; hazardous materials suits…”

*

Bethselamin was almost perfect; the sun was warm, but its blazing, blinding brilliance was softened by – they were told – the same atmospheric layers which filtered out much of the harmful UV radiation and created the brilliant azure of the daytime sky, the indigo velvet of the night and the breathtaking beauty of the dawn and the dusk. The heat itself was also just right; pleasant rather than overwhelming, and with barely a trace of humidity, fading to a comfortable coolness at night. The people of the town of Bethela were incredibly friendly and accommodating. If anything were wrong with the planet, in Ian’s mind, it was the warm familiarity with which some of the men treated Barbara on the beach, while for Barbara the only imperfection was the overly-intimate solicitude of Do. Kith, the medic she had found to monitor Ian’s condition.

“I’m not sure she’s a real doctor,” Barbara admitted. “Have you seen those shoes? And the fingernails…”

Ian looked up from his sunbed. “And this is why you let her treat me for the last eight days?”

“I was misled,” Barbara decided. “Feel up to a swim?”

“You know, I think I do,” Ian laughed. “Which if nothing else speaks highly of Genna’s skills as a medic.”

“Oh, yes,” Barbara replied archly. “I’ve seen you admiring her ‘skills’.”

“Be nice,” Ian retorted. “I had to do something rather than just lie here and watch you flirt with half the population while I convalesced.”

“You…” Barbara narrowed her eyes and jabbed an ice cream at Ian’s chest.

He reeled in shock for a moment and then lunged for her. She darted back and they ran, shrieking with laughter, down to the sheltered cove where they could swim in the warm, blue, gently shifting waters. 

After half an hour, Barbara climbed out and lay down beside Ian on the soft sand. Her skin tingled pleasantly from the kiss of the unique mineral balance in the seawater. “Mmm. Too much for you still?”

“I got a good ten minutes,” he assured her. “Not bad for a man who was tortured half to death a week ago.”

Barbara rolled onto her side and put a hand on his arm. Her skin, softened and invigorated by the water, hummed where it touched his. “Don’t talk like that,” she told him.

“Well, it’s true.”

“I know. I just don’t like to think about it.”

Ian smiled. “Has anyone asked you to this fire dance thing yet?”

“One or two,” Barbara shrugged. “Haven’t made up my mind about any of them. You?”

“Genna asked.”

“Is that professional?”

“I think Bethselamin has pretty relaxed views on professional decorum.”

“And dress codes,” Barbara muttered. “So, you’re going with Do. Kith?”

“Haven’t made up my mind,” Ian replied. “I thought something better might come up.”

Barbara smiled. “Well; you’ll never know if you don’t ask.”

*

The HE suit was bulky and hot, layers of heavy fabric beneath a polymer sheath. The helmet was heavy on her shoulders and closed in claustrophobically around her head. There was no visor. Instead, a sensory apparatus clamped around her brow; clips held her eyes open, staring at screens held just in front of them, buds pressed uncomfortably into her ears and a small crucible under her nose. According to the Doctor, the crucible would chemically simulate the smell of the environment; so far it just gave off a steady stink of burned hair.

“I hate this thing,” Susan declared. She ran a hand over the slick fabric of the outer sheath. “And are you sure this will stand up to those winds.”

“Hmm.” The Doctor’s voice came thin and tinny through the ear-buds; her image, anonymous and uncomforting in her own HE suit, appeared in hazy monochrome on the eye-screens. “Better to check, although there should be no danger of perishing.” She pinched a fold of the fabric between her fingers and drove a bradawl at it. The point of the implement slithered harmlessly over the smooth surface. “Seems sound. The inertial boots will keep you steady in the wind, but walk slowly.” 

The Doctor worked the controls. “I’m extending the TARDIS force field to protect the dimensional interface and keep the winds from ripping the control room apart.” She dug in her toolbox and handed Susan a small box.

“This is a dimensional stabiliser, Susan, synchronised with the force field resonance. Keep it with you and you’ll be able to pass through.”

Susan took the device and tucked it into a pocket on her HE suit, sealing it closed against the elements. “Right then.”

*

The fire dance was like so many things on Bethselamin; wild, exciting, passionate… and just a little too familiar for Ian and Barbara’s comfort. The dance itself was close and intense and called for much switching of partners as groups wheeled, turned, opened and closed. It was something of a relief to come back together at the end of their first dance and find a quiet corner.

“That Kith woman was all over you,” Barbara accused.

“You don’t need to tell me!” he protested. “Think I’ll sit out the next few rounds. Did you bring your comms unit?”

“Always.”

“Good. I’m going to get us a drink. If you see Genna Kith heading in my direction, call me with a warning. I don’t think I’m physically prepared for any more of her… interest.”

“If she gets too close I’ll shoot her,” Barbara offered. “Well; throw a bread roll at her or something. The Doctor still won’t let me carry a gun in – or out of – the TARDIS.”

Ian grinned and walked away to one of the many bars. There wasn’t much of a queue; there never was on Bethselamin. He leaned on the bar and waved for the attention of the barman, an older man in a white suit.

“What can I do for you, Mr Campbell?”

Ian took a good look at the barman. “Oh. It’s you.”

 

From her lounger, Barbara watched Ian and smiled.

“Good evening, Miss Tyler.”

She looked up at the woman standing next to her. “Oh; it’s you.”

*

“If my readings are correct and if memory serves, this is the planet Voras in the year 22,145BC,” the Doctor explained, the headset boosting her voice over the constant hiss of dust against the suit. She struggled up a steep incline, trying to keep Susan in sight. “It’s a primordial planet; even the most basic life won’t develop here for almost half a million years.”

Susan crouched at the jagged, razor-backed ridge. “Is that so?”

“Indeed. The first amino acids will begin to form as the result of an energetic impulse from a meteor strike about fifty millennia in the future. The other four-hundred-and-fifty thousand is all experimentation with combinations and proteins.”

“And force fields and hab-cubes.”

The Doctor paused, panting for breath. “Not for a few billion more years.”

“I think they’re ahead of the timetable.” She turned around and held out a hand to help the Doctor up the last few yards to the ridge. “Take a look.”

*

“Now, don’t go, Mr Campbell,” the White Guardian protested. “This is the Fire Dance and you haven’t even sampled a Bethelan Fireball!”

“There are other bars.”

  
“I can be at all of them,” the Guardian assured him. “Now, why don’t you sit down and listen while I mix two Fireballs for you and the lovely Miss Tyler? I’ll even deflect Do. Kith’s attention, if you listen.”

Ian glanced over his shoulder, sighed and took a seat. True to the Guardian’s word, Genna Kith walked straight past him. “Alright; talk and mix. You have until the Fireballs... ignite.”

*

“May I sit?” the Black Guardian asked.

“It’s a free planet,” Barbara sighed. “You look better than you did last time. Plenty of invigorating dips in the ocean?”

The Guardian ran a finger down her smooth cheek. “This? This is nothing more than a projection; my appearance is something that I can change at will. I did think about choosing an unknown face; something masculine and… dashing, but I was afraid that Mr Tyler would come strutting over and I do so want a chance to talk to you in private.”

“Why?”

“Because, Barbara, unlike my pasty-faced associate, I actually care what becomes of your sister once she has fulfilled her purpose as a tracer.”

*

“Well now; this isn’t right.”

 _This_  was a substantial base, protected by a force field bubble. From the prefabricated natured of the domes which surrounded the central tower, and from the fact that the tower in question was a warp-capable starship, it seemed clear that  _this_  was a scientific research base, rather than a serious attempt at settlement.  
“Still,” the Doctor hummed, “there should be no survey of Voras until… at least 12,000BC.”

“Ten thousand years ago?” Susan asked.

“No, child; in ten millennia from now. Haven’t I explained about BC and AD?”

“AD is After the Daleks.”

The Doctor sighed. “I should have fought that choice so much harder than I did… I suppose that the segment is in that impossible base?”

Susan nodded. “It’s in the rocket ship.”

“Of course it is.”

*

The White Guardian deftly juggled two bottles, one containing clear liquor, the other a red-gold syrup. “So, you understand that my brother – well, perhaps I should say sister at present – and I represent opposite sides of a coin; opposite ends of a spectrum. I am Light in Time, she is Darkness. I stand for order, she for chaos; I for good, she for evil and so on.”

“With you so far.”

“The Key to Time was created by a race of extradimensional engineers called the Grace – only, don’t let the name fool you, they’re actually  _terribly_  ungracious – for the purpose of stopping all time and space for an instant, in order to repair the fabric of causality.” 

 

The Black Guardian reclined on a lounger with her arms behind her head. “Ordinarily, the Key isn’t needed,” she said with a languid and extravagant yawn. “It’s an… emergency device, and coincidentally the most devastating weapon in all existence. Generally it is only needed once every significant era, although the reckless replacement of segments with imperfect replicas and the wanton dispersal of z-neutrinos can hasten the process of entropy.”

Barbara frowned. “I do  _not_  like the way you lick your lips when you say ‘z-neutrino’,” she said.

“Hmm? So sorry.” The Guardian chuckled. “I do find chaos a little… delicious. It’s in my nature.”

“Do you suppose this might be why I doubt your sincerity when you say that you have Susan’s best interests at heart?”

 

“In this time of crisis my… other half and I have agreed to work together on the repair. Once the Key has been collected we shall extract the Key from Miss Susan Tyler and use it to restructure the universe. We shall have only a very short time in which to do that before the tension between our influences breaks the Key apart and scatters it again.”

 

“Unfortunately, by that point your sister will be on the brink of complete molecular collapse. The Key will be all that holds her together. We would be able to repair her, of course, but the Key will break before we have the time.”

“No!” Barbara snapped.

“The only way will be if  _one_  of us and one alone takes control of the Key, and  _I_  am the only one who will care about Susan.  _He_  can only see the universe in generalities; what’s one human more or less to him? But to me? Susan is a teenager; a living source of change and chaos.”

 

“Life means nothing to the Black Guardian. Only if  _I_  have sole control of the Key can I save her. And only  _I_  can be trusted to return the Key to its harmless, separated state without the need for the tension between two Guardians.  _I_  care for the stability of the universe;  _she_  cares only for destruction.”

“So what do you want from me?”

The White Guardian placed two glasses on the bar. “Only for you to be there when the final segment is found. Susan trusts you; you can persuade her to surrender the Key to me and me alone.”

 

“You’re her sister; make her give the Key to me and I can save her.” The Black Guardian sprang to her feet. “Now, I’d better be going before your Ian comes back. The White Guardian has always been the Doctor’s favourite – all of them – and Ian seems like a chip off the old block.”

“Don’t tell you friend, by the way. Best not to worry her. Better hurry now, Mr Tyler. The fireballs will self-ignite in less than fifteen seconds.”

*

Wheezing and groaning like a grampus, the TARDIS materialised again.

“Will this be alright?” Susan asked. “Can we still track back to Ian and Barbara?”

“Oh, without a doubt,” the Doctor assured her. “We, uh, might be a few days out, but we haven’t travelled in time this time, merely made a short, spatial hop to bring us through the force field. If we triangulated the location of the segment correctly, I should have landed no more than a few yards away.” She switched on the scanner. “Ah, yes; on the control deck of the survey ship. Out we go; carefully now. Don’t forget your helmet; there shouldn’t be anyone in the survey ship, so the oxygen supply is switched off. They won’t have vented the atmosphere, but it will be stale this far into a tour.”

*

“Who was your friend?” Ian asked.

Barbara shrugged. “Just some girl; looking for someone. Did you have fun talking to the bartender?”

“Oh, he was a bundle of laughs. He kept talking about drinks,” Ian lied.

There was a brief, awkward pause and then the drinks in Ian’s hands hissed, seethed and burst into flames, sending a tumbling ball of flame up into the air above each glass.

“Wow,” Barbara laughed. “That’s a dramatic drink.”

“Well worth the wait.” Ian handed over a glass, the awkwardness forgotten. “Cheers.”

*

The metal coil glowed under Susan’s touch, first transforming into a crystal segment and then being absorbed into her body. Momentarily her head, arms and torso glowed.

“Alright, Doctor…” Susan half turned, but found that the Doctor had gone. “Doctor!” She began to run back towards the TARDIS, but tripped and fell as the inertial boots dragged at her feet. As she pushed herself up, booted feet thudded down in front of her. She looked up.

“I am sorry to worry you, Susan,” the Doctor said. “I thought that I had best find a replacement for the component you were removing.” She held up another metal coil.

“A Dalek warp core?”

“It is rather more sophisticated than the one which was the segment, and rather less unique, but compatible with the minimum of fuss.”

Susan stared at her hand. “ _That_  was a warp core?”

“My dear girl, as your species only has warp travel at all because of the Dalek invasion, I should be wary of mocking the Ventrasardi.”

“That’s this lot?”

The Doctor nodded. “Very careful race, the Ventrasardi. They invariably take care not to leave any impact on undeveloped worlds.”

“Explains why no-one knew they’d been here.”

A klaxon began to wail. 

“More than we can say about us,” Susan noted.

The Doctor set down the warp core with a sigh. “And now we have to run; dial down the inertial boots to setting one.” She shook her head. “At my age there should be more dignified ways to make an exit.”

*

The TARDIS settled with a bump. By the time the Doctor had opened the doors, Ian and Barbara were at the door.

“ _A couple of days?_ ” Ian demanded.

“At worst,” Barbara added angrily. “ _Three months_!”

Susan looked bashful. “Oops.”

“We’ve been stuck here, worrying about you, drinking cocktails, baking in the sun and fighting off oversexed physicians for  _three months_!”

“Well then,” the Doctor interrupted. “You’ve spent long enough lollygagging around. Come! Let’s waste no more time. In, in!”

Dumbstruck, Ian and Barbara went into the TARDIS. As the door closed and the shed began to dematerialise, Barbara wondered: “When did it get so that  _we_  did something wrong?”


	4. The Rainbow Bridge

“Earth?” Ian asked.

“England?” Barbara asked.

“London?” Susan added.

“You sound so doubtful,” the Doctor noted. “Do you not trust my judgement?” She began tweaking a control on the console and a hiss and whine of static emerged from a speaker, broken intermittently by voices.

“ _What’s that coming over the hill?_ ” a voice sang.

“ _You know it’s true, Everything…_ ” another sang.

“ _Rugby league; rugby union…._ ”

“ _This is the news at midday on Monday the 8th of July 2007._ ”

The Doctor shut off the speaker. “There. About a century and a half before the Dalek invasion. Out there is a world which has only just learned of the existence of other worlds and other species.”

“An Earth that doesn’t know what a Dalek is?” Barbara’s eyes took on a dreamy cast at the thought.

“Well, for the most part,” the Doctor corrected. “However, it is also an Earth that is not riddled with the mutated survivors of Dalek bio-experimentation and so a world where – in England especially – the bulk of the population does not g armed. It will save us a great deal of trouble with the authorities if you leave your various knives behind, Barbara.”

“Spoilsport,” Barbara grumbled, but she reluctantly began to stack her concealed blades on the console.

*

“Seven!” Ian exclaimed.

“Ian, let it go,” Barbara begged.

“But… what do you need that many knives for?”

“Well I might need to stab seven guys!”

Susan turned to face her friends and coughed angrily. “People are  _staring_ ,” she growled.

“Indeed,” the Doctor agreed. “Stabbing is hardly a common topic of conversation in this time period.”

“Neither are time periods!” Susan hissed.

“Hmm. A good point,” the Doctor mused, “and yet… Do you feel it, Ian?”

“I feel something, Grandmother. It’s like at the shrine in the Eye of Orion.”

The Doctor nodded. “Exactly, my boy, and that is the touch of temporal energy. It is present everywhere in the universe, but not in these concentrations.  _Someone_  is experimenting with time, and I have little doubt that we

shall find them as soon as we find the next segment of the Key to Time. Until then we should not speculate too much about…” The Doctor’s words tailed off into silence as the air shimmered and a host of lambent figures stepped out of thin air; shining light surrounding a core of shadows.

“What the hell is this?” Barbara demanded. She reached beneath her coat, but the knife she was looking for was not there. She half-turned and saw that Ian was brandishing the plasma wrench he had bought at the Garazone bazaar. “Why didn’t he have to leave that behind?”

“It’s a tool!” Ian protested.

“Put it away,” the Doctor insisted. “There’s no danger, not immediately. Look at the people, hmm. They may have been staring at us, but they barely pay these… spirits the slightest attention.” She fished in her pockets and produced a fistful of spectacles. After a moment of dithering she selected a heavy pair with dark, tinted lenses and put them on.

“But what are they?” Susan wondered.

A passerby laughed out loud. “They’re ghosts! Where have you been for the last ten months?”

“Oh, thereby hangs a tale,” Barbara assured him.

“But no time for that, no time,” the Doctor hastened to add. She took the glasses off and frowned pensively. “There is more afoot here than just the Key to Time and we need to hurry or we’ll be caught up in it.”

“But if there’s trouble…” Ian shook his head. “Shouldn’t we help?”

“An admirable impulse, Ian, but the Key to Time comes first. The crisis the Guardians talked about; I can feel it now; the entropy building at the corners of the universe. If we can not recover the six segments in time, these ghosts – or whatever they are – will be the least of Earth’s worries. Lead on, Susan.”

 

Susan took them to a tower, one of the ancient skyscrapers which had long-since vanished from the London skyline by 217AD, victims of the Dalek attack or the ravages of time. The building was guarded, but the Doctor quickly located a rear entrance and her sonic screwdriver worked its magic on the alarms and locks.

“Always in that order,” she told her companions seriously. “I learned that lesson the hard way.”

“In your past career as a thief?” Ian asked.

“As an adventuress,” the Doctor replied.

“Why would an adventuress need…?” Barbara began, but she stopped and glanced around at their situation. “Never mind.”

Once inside, Susan led them up the fire stairs. It was a tall tower and it took them a long time to make their way up 26 storeys to the uppermost chamber.

“What does WOTAN mean?” Ian wondered, checking the sign on the sole door on this level.

Susan was examining a plaque on the opposite wall. “Will Operating Thought Analogue. It was a computer designed to control all other computer systems in the world; it went wrong and the programme was cancelled, but this was the room where WOTAN was based.”

Barbara was looking up and down nervously. “If this is important, there should be guards,” she insisted. “Where are the guards?”

“Busy with the ghosts, perhaps?” Ian suggested. “But this is it, isn’t it, Grandmother? I can feel the temporal energy.”

“Yes,” the Doctor agreed. “And something else. Something I…” She shook her head. “But that’s impossible.” She ran the sonic screwdriver over the lock and it opened with a click.

“What?” Ian insisted.

“The taste in the air; the taste of time and… It reminds me of… of the Daleks and my Grandfather and…” She shook her head. “Of a lot of things that simply can not be; not since the Time War.” She pushed the door open and strode into the WOTAN room.

The chamber was dominated by a huge and ancient computer, complete with reel-to-reel tape decks and vast banks of lights. None of these systems appeared to be active – apart from a large digital countdown on top of the reel-to-reel cabinet – but there was a second, smaller computer in front of them, equipped with an array of disk drives and LED banks in exact parallel to the older systems at a fraction of the size. And in front of that…

“It’s like the main column of the TARDIS,” Susan gasped.

“The time rotor,” Ian recalled.

The Doctor frowned. “It’s a crude vortex rift manipulator. But there’s no rift in London.”

“The rift is transient and cyclical.” A thin, nervous-looking man emerged from behind the giant computer. “Dr Reed; and you are?”

“The Doctor,” the Doctor replied.

Reed gave a snort of laughter. “Nice try, but sloppy research.”

The Doctor looked put out. “Well, whoever I am I certainly know more about rift manipulators than you do and what do you mean ‘cyclical’?”

“I mean it comes and goes,” Reed replied in a loud, slow voice. “Every five hundred and fifteen hours, twenty-one minutes and seventeen seconds the rift opens for a period of exactly twelve minutes and thirty-nine seconds.” He pointed to the countdown, which read 00:05:13 00:00:00.

The Doctor scrutinised the display. “Time to next cycle and elapsed time since activation, I presume.”

“ _Obviously_.”

“But despite its predictability the rift is unstable, hence the need for this lash-up of a rift manipulator.” The Doctor bent down and tapped at a keyboard on the manipulator’s base.

“The controls and monitors are all code locked; you need…”

The Doctor played the sonic screwdriver over the keyboard and the attached monitor came to life.

“What…? How…?”

“Susan; is this the segment?”

“No, Doctor; it’s… over there.” Susan pointed to a table beside the original WOTAN.

The Doctor looked over. “Hmm. Does anything seem… out of place to you?”

Ian and Barbara followed Susan to the table. “It’s like a… museum exhibit,” Ian said.

“So’re the computers,” Barbara reminded him.

“But a different period.”

The table was indeed strewn with historical artefacts; a helmet, a weaving sword, a piece of animal skin which had been used for writing. There was a smith’s hammer and a series of bronze, penannular brooches.

“Viking, if I am not very much mistaken,” the Doctor noted.

Susan reached out and picked up the weaving sword. At once the metal began to glow; its shape blurred into that of the fourth segment of the key to time and was absorbed into Susan’s body.

“What…?” Reed croaked.

“Alright,” the Doctor said. “Just give me time to reconfigure the manipulator to close the rift…” She looked thoughtfully at Reed. “Do you have anyone on the other side at present?”

Reed shook his head. “We had several people go off… sick and then they pulled everyone else to work on the ghost shifts. I haven’t had any help for months.”

Alarms whooped as the countdown approached 00:00:00.

“Then I shall just seal the rift and we can…”

As suddenly as before, the ghosts appeared, stepping out of the air. One manifested right in front of Susan and she stepped backwards. At the same moment there was a sharp crack and a smell of ozone filled the air.  
Ian gasped in alarm; unlike Susan and Barbara he could see the split which had opened in the air next to the manipulator, and he could see that Susan was stepping directly towards it. “Susan!” He stepped towards her, but so did the ghost and she retreated again in alarm. Ian reached out desperately and caught Susan’s arm, but she was already more than half in the rift.

With a cry and a flash of light, Susan vanished, and Ian and the ghost disappeared with her.

“No!” Barbara leaped forward, but before she could step into the rift the Doctor slammed the power settings of the manipulator to maximum. A flash like lightning split the air and the rift closed forever.

“What have you done?” Barbara demanded.

“Reed’s people were sick because they tried to travel the vortex unshielded; it destroyed their minds. Susan will be protected by the Key and Ian is time sensitive, but you could die from a single journey. However, we can track the rift’s remnant in the TARDIS.” She glanced at the ghosts. “If we hurry.”

*

Ian felt his body stretch and warp as he travelled through the rift. His consciousness began to fray, but his grandmother had taught him much in the last few months. He folded his arms and legs into the Gallifreyan lotus pose and, with an effort of will, pulled his fracturing mind back together. Thus composed, he could see the Vortex rushing past on either side, and was aware of two other presences in the rift with him: One shone like a shining star, bright enough almost to blind him. The other was massive and dark and menacing.

The rift ended as suddenly as it had begun, ejecting Ian with a crack like thunder. He tumbled wildly across the grass and landed, arms spread, at the top of a steep hillside. He saw Susan standing firm as he rolled by and, a moment later, something large and shiny rocketed past and clashed and crashed and clattered down the hill towards a small, rustic-looking cluster of huts and longhouses.

“What was that?” he asked.

Susan walked over and held out a hand to help him up. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I  _thought_  it was the ghost, but it was… too big; shinier and not so glowy.”

Ian sighed. “We’d better go down and check.”

“What?”

“We can’t leave… it here in the past,” Ian argued, “whatever it is. Besides, the rift just closed.”

“What?” Susan turned around and reached out, trying to feel for the rift. “Was that twelve minutes? That wasn’t twelve minutes.”

“No,” Ian agreed. “Grandmother must have closed the rift herself. That means she’ll be on her way to pick us up and I for one don’t want her to find us ignoring a threat to the sanctity of time.”

“Alright,” Susan sighed. “I suppose we’ll need to walk?”

“You could probably roll, but I’m a little too breakable. Best foot forward, Susan Tyler.”

“I think the right one was glowing,” Susan mused, “so that must be the best.”

*

The Doctor ran. Barbara would not have thought that the old woman had it in her, but the Doctor ran; ran like a hare past screaming crowds and rank upon rank of giant, silver figures.

“Halt!” the silver giants demanded. “Halt or be destroyed!”

“Run!” the Doctor yelled.

Energy blasts whipped past Barbara as she ran, hunkered low to the ground, filling the air around them in greater and greater density until, just as Barbara was sure they must be cut down, the giants stopped firing, turned and began to march away. Barbara stopped and watched after them. “Where are they going?” she wondered.

“Run!” the Doctor repeated.

“They’re heading for that big tower,” Barbara went on. “There’s something… something coming out of the top. I think…”

“RUN!” The Doctor’s voice was more full of terror than anything Barbara had ever heard. She turned and she ran, the Doctor’s fear sinking deep into her soul.

They ran hard and fast to the TARDIS, without ever looking back. As the Doctor fumbled the key into the lock they heard the screaming behind them redouble, and harsh, grating voices crying: “Exterminate!”

The Doctor grabbed Barbara and hauled her through into the control room. She slammed the door behind them and leaped to the console, shutting off the scanner.

“What is it?” Barbara demanded. “I want to see!”

The Doctor worked the controls and closed the dematerialisation circuit. “No,” she declared. “You don’t.” 

*

It was a long and tiring climb down the hillside, and long before they reached the bottom they heard the sounds of screams. Sliding and stumbling the last hundred yards they sprinted to the high fence which surrounded the village. The gates had been smashed open by the impact of – at a guess – a heavy, fast-moving metal object ejected from a time rift far above.

Beyond the gates, flames licked at the buildings and there were bodies on the ground. Smoke hung thickly in the air, heavy with the sickly stink of burning flesh. Sounds drifted on the slight breeze from further into the settlement: screams, wailing and the clash of metal on metal.

“Wait here,” Ian ordered. He set off along the muddy path at a run. After a moment, Susan followed.

In the centre of the town was a large, open space, flanked by longhouses and with a great, stave church at one end. In the centre of this space a group of warriors flung themselves at a giant figure in silver armour. Swords and axes bounced harmlessly from a casing that was stronger than iron or steel. The silver man turned around and around, striking men and sending them flying or loosing blasts of killing energy from a weapon built into its wrists.

“Resistance is useless,” it declared in a flat, electronic voice. “There is nothing to fear. You will be upgraded. You will become like us.”

With a cry of “Odin!” the tallest of the warriors threw himself at the silver brute. His sword glanced harmlessly from the armoured shoulders and the creature turned, grabbing the blade and snatching it out of his hand. It swept its hands together and shattered the iron blade.

“Your weapons are ineffective,” the creature noted. It struck the warrior away and levelled its blaster.

“No!” A girl, not much older than ten years old, ran out from the buildings. “Daddy!” she screamed, throwing herself on top of the warrior. 

Echoing the girl’s cry, Susan sprinted forward and flung herself into the line of fire. She felt the energy blasts strike her in the abdomen and chest, but could not see the riot of brazen light which flickered through her form so that she seemed almost to be on fire. 

“Susan!” Ian ran forward, raising his plasma wrench. The field flashed into life at the head of the tool and Ian brought it down violently. The wrench was designed to use the plasma field to generate a magnetic tractor beam, but a violent blow could cause the ring of coruscating flame to discharge all of its awesome potential in a single blow.

With a crack like thunder the field discharged into the creature. Superheated plasma burned through the metal casing and writhing coils of electricity wound and twisted through the mechanical innards. With a plaintive, metallic cry, the creature fell to the ground; inert; dead.

The villagers stared at their saviour in wonderment. To the folk of a 9th Century village he was a giant, and he held in his hand a weapon which burned with the light of the sun and struck with the force of a thunderbolt. No less wondrous to them was his companion, a dark-haired youth whose body blazed like wildfire.

“’Tis Thor!” one man cried.

“And Loki!” an old woman added.

“They came down the Rainbow bridge to slay the jotun!” a third voice added. “I saw them spring forth upon the hill!”

“Hail to the Aesir!” the crowd roared. “Hail Loki! Hail Thor!”

“No, no,” Ian stammered. “I, um… Susan?”

The crowd began to press forward, but at that moment the air was rent by a colossal grinding, wheezing noise.

“The chariot of Thor!” the crowd cried.

“Where’s ‘is goats then?” a more sceptical observer wanted to know.

“Not much of a chariot,” the old woman added as Ian and Susan scuttled inside and the TARDIS began to dematerialise once more.

Slowly the chanting subsided.

The crowd was silent for a long moment, until someone cried: “The gods have walked among us!”

As they counted the dead, the mood in the village was jubilant, for the gods _had_ walked among them, and they would never forget it.


	5. Legacy of the Daleks

Ian watched the Doctor in concern as Susan worked the controls of the TARDIS. “Grandmother?” he asked. “What’s wrong.”

Barbara swallowed hard. “They were… They were Daleks; weren’t they?”

The Doctor nodded. “I hoped…” Her voice was weak and quavering. “I never wanted to hear those voices again. When I saw the shrine I thought… Why?” she demanded. “If my people are dead, how can they have survived? Where is the justice?”

Ian went forward and put his arms around her, hugging her tightly. “Are you alright?” he asked Barbara.

She nodded, but her eyes looked daze. “It took me a moment to realise what they were. I was so scared. It was like all the horror stories I’d ever heard were suddenly true. If we land and run into  _vampires…_ ”

The Doctor shuddered. “Let us not go to such places,” she advised. “Believe me, my dear, there are darker and more terrible creatures in this galaxy than you can imagine, but most of the ones that have been imagined were known at some time before that. If you ever want to sleep again you will ask me no more, hmm?”

“You’re right,” Barbara reluctantly agreed. “There are things I don’t want to know.”

Susan twisted the flight control and the main column shuddered into motion again. The Doctor cocked her head to one side. “That’s odd,” she said.

“What’s odd?” Ian asked.

“It sounds as though we’re travelling in time, but not in space. Seems that the fifth segment is also on Earth.”

“Forward in time or back?” Barbara wondered.

“Hmm? Good, good question,” the Doctor said approvingly. “Forward; but it means that I should be able to calibrate the temporal circuits once we know how far we have travelled… and what sort of world we arrive in.”  
With a soft chime, the TARDIS came to rest. The Doctor activated the scanner and frowned. “That can’t be right.”

The scanner showed row after row of dark, square towers, all showing clear signs of bombardment. The TARDIS had landed at night, but when the Doctor angled the detectors to view the sky there was no moon, no stars, just a thick, grey pall of smoke, lit low and to the east with a ghostly glow.

“What’s that?” Susan asked.

“The moon, I think.” The Doctor worked the controls. “Oh dear; this isn’t good. Atmospheric toxins, carbon dioxide levels… soil acidity.” She shook her head. 

“Time to break out the hazardous environment suits again?” Susan asked.

“That shouldn’t be necessary,” the Doctor assured her, “but we will need strong shoes, umbrellas and respirators” – she dug a box out of one of the storage lockers – “and anti-radiation pills. Susan and I will seek out the next segment; Ian and Barbara, can you seek out clues as to the date?”

“Shouldn’t we stick together?” Barbara asked.

“I would rather not stay in a place like this any longer than we have to,” the Doctor assured her, “but we do need to calibrate the temporal circuits if I am ever to get you home.”

Barbara exchanged a quick look with Ian, but she nodded. “Alright then; but remember your communicator, Susan. We need to keep in contact.”

“I’ve got it,” Susan assured her, “ _and_  I’ve tuned the active scanner to double as a subwave relay. We can maintain communications as long as we’re both in range of the TARDIS.”

Barbara shook her head and wiped away an imaginary tear. “It seems like only yesterday I was teaching her to reset her first circuit breaker. Which way do you need to go?”

Susan closed her eyes for a moment. “East,” she said at last.

“Then we’ll go west, see what we can find there.”

“If you run into trouble, come back to the TARDIS and stay there,” the Doctor said. She took a key from her pocket and tossed it to Ian. “And Barbara…”

“Yes?”

“Take your knives; and your gun.”

Ian was shocked. “Grandmother?”

“I’ve seen worlds like this before,” the Doctor sighed. “I prefer to talk my way out of trouble, but…”

“But you don’t have faith in my ability to do the same?”

“I didn’t say that,” the Doctor insisted.

“Well then…”

“I didn’t  _say_  that.”

Barbara shrugged. “Fair enough. Are you going to keep hold of that plasma wrench, Ian?”

Ian shook his head. “It’s not designed as a weapon; I overloaded the power cells discharging the plasma field into that… giant.” He dropped the tool on the console. “At best it’s a rather ungainly club. I’ve got a snap stick in my room; I used to use it for exploring the wreck.”

Barbara laughed. “You went up against slithers with a snap stick?”

“It was enough to make them think twice,” Ian replied.

The Doctor nodded. “You two get your things and Susan and I will find some umbrellas and treat them against corrosives. We can use the respirators, boots and gauntlets from the HE suits.”

*

The buildings where the TARDIS had landed were blasted; empty and abandoned, their walls pitted and holed.

“Where are the people?” Susan wondered. “Are they all… dead?”

“I don’t know, Susan,” the Doctor admitted. “The TARDIS detected life-signs, but the radiation caused too much interference to see if there was anything  _human_.”

Susan looked up at one of the towers. “I’m going to get up higher,” she said. “This building is a lot taller than most of the others so it should give me a good vantage point. I’ll look for signs of life and try to work out where the segment is.”

“My dear girl, it is not safe.”

Susan grinned. “I’ve been running ruins since I was bump high to a Dalek,” she said. “Oh, sorry.”

The Doctor’s smile was haunted. “I understand. They’re just a story to you.”

Susan took a leather strap from her pocket and used it to sling her umbrella over her back. “The lower levels should be pretty stable; I’ll find a vantage point and call down on the comms. You  _do_  have a communicator, don’t you?”

“Never liked them,” the Doctor grumbled. “A phone in the house was good enough for my teachers…” She grinned and pulled a communicator from her pocket. “But Ian got me one as a present, last Liberation Day.”

“Then I’ll call you soon.”

*

“How are you feeling?” Ian asked.

“Better,” Barbara admitted. “Chasing you and Susan down a hole in time was scary; this is something I know.”

“And the gun?”

Barbara shrugged. “Kind of feels uncomfortable. I guess I’ve got used to your grandmother’s way of doing things.”

Ian smiled. “You don’t want to go back, do you?”

“Not really. Do you?”

“There was one thing that might have made me… But no,” he agreed. “Torture and injury notwithstanding, this is the life for me. It just feels so… right.”

“Maybe that’s the Time Lord in you?” Barbara suggested. “You always seemed… otherworldly; an outsider. In the TARDIS you seem to belong.”

“I never felt like an outsider; no more than you and Susan, anyway. Or maybe I just felt as though I belonged where you were.”

Barbara grinned. “That’s nice to know. Now… how do you find out what year it is when you’re in an abandoned city?”

“We could look for a calendar; that would give us a terminus post quem,” Ian suggested.

“A what?”

Ian shook his head in mock despair. “You were never interested in the historical side of artefact recovery. I mean that if we find a calendar we’ll know the earliest date it can possibly be.”

“Well, why not just say so? Not that I’m complaining,” she added. “I like it when you talk fancy. It’s… pretty. Come on; let’s find a calendar.”

*

Susan ascended four flights of stairs and then used her rock axes to scale another three storeys of broken steps, rubble and walls. The surrounding buildings were still high enough to block her view, so she found a secure point another six floors above and used her scaling wire to ascend. As she settled on a ledge a hundred feet up her communicator hissed.

“ _Susan, what are you doing?_ ”

“I need to get up high,” she replied. “Don’t worry; I know what I’m doing.” She looked out over the city and caught her breath in amazement. Broken shells of buildings stretched away into the distance, the upper surfaces shattered and weathered by long exposure to the chemical rain. Beyond this desolation, however, she saw light.

Susan’s pockets were packed with her scavenger’s kit; her scaling wire coiled in its launching gun, her rock axe and other tools, packs and straps and a dozen other bits and pieces. She dug out her binoculars and scrutinised the distant light. “Doctor; I can see domes,” she reported. “Glass or clear plastic, perhaps.”

“ _Survival domes,_ ” the Doctor replied, “ _built to keep out the poisons and corrosives and radiation in the environment._ ”

“There are domes all around, but there’s a tower in the east; all dark, with a dome at the top. It looks like it’s about ten miles away.” She took out her pocket pad and activated the compass, marking a bearing where her senses told her the segment lay. “I’ll try to triangulate the position of the segment.”

There was a second tall building across from Susan’s perch. She fired her scaling wire over the street and swung out with a whoop of delight.

“ _Susan!_ ” the Doctor cried in alarm. 

Susan teetered on the edge of the ledge, clinging to her scaling gun for balance. With an effort she hauled herself onto surer ground and recoiled the wire. “Please, Doctor; these things take concentration.”

“ _So noted, Susan,_ ” the Doctor replied crossly. “ _Although in fairness, some warning would be helpful in future. I can’t be expected to take it calmly if you suddenly fly out into space._ ”

“I  _said_  I needed to triangulate,” Susan insisted, aggrieved. She took another bearing with the pocket pad and compared the two. “Well, that’s a surprise,” she drawled.

“ _Do I take it that the segment is in the tower?_ ” the Doctor asked.

“Where else?” Susan fired her scaling wire’s spike into the wall. “I’m coming down. Try not to worry.” She stepped backwards from the ledge and let the launcher’s winch lower her at a swift, but safe speed.

*

“I don’t think we’re going to find a calendar out here,” Barbara noted. “Look at these walls; they’re like glass.”

“Vitrified,” Ian agreed. “Like ground zero in wreck city. You’re right; if whatever destroyed the city was hot enough to do this to stone, there won’t be any paper. We should try to find a cellar or basement; there may be computers or file stores in bunkers and bomb shelters.”

Barbara nodded. “That building across the way looks like it had some pretty fancy moulding on the front; columns, remains of coloured tiles. Fancy means rich…”

“And rich means protected.”

“Let’s take a look. Be careful, though; there’s some kind of life in these ruins. I saw something move in the shadows earlier; something big.”

“Then I’m glad you’re here with me,” Ian assured her, “and as glad that Susan is with my grandmother.”

After contacting the Doctor, they warily entered the great, rich building and found themselves in a mighty foyer. Its windows were shattered, its fittings scorched to charcoal, but the ceiling hung intact overhead.  
Barbara took in the details. “What do you think? Town house? Civic hall?”

“I think this was a place of business,” Ian replied. “Something about it smacks of corporate architecture. In which case…” He thought for a moment. “Basement access” – he pointed left, then spun to the right – “but an atom shelter would be an executive privilege so… This way.” He led her past a rusted turnstile to a heavy, locked door, on which wood had rotted away from metal.

“Locked tight,” Barbara noted, “after all this time.”

Ian inspected the pitted surface. “A century at least,” he surmised. He reached into his long coat and pulled out a metal cylinder.

“The Doctor loaned you her sonic screwdriver?”

“I made my own,” Ian replied. “It’s a little bulkier, perhaps, but just as good.” He played the device over the lock twice, three times, the emitters giving out their soft chirr When nothing happened, Ian altered the settings and tried again. On a third attempt, the lock gave a heavy clunk. “Almost as good,” he allowed.

The security door gave onto another corridor, the walls of which stood almost untouched by holocaust. Around the door were scorch marks, but the rest was tainted only by mould and time. They played their torch beams along the passage and saw no windows.

“I wonder…” Ian turned his torch towards the side of the door and found a switch. When he threw it, a flicker of soft light shone out from strips along the skirting boards. “Emergency power,” he noted. “Must be some form of reactor to have lasted so long.”

Barbara nodded and checked her pocket pad. The radiation meter clicked softly, but no more so than it had outside. “No significant leaks,” she noted, but she put the pad in her pocket still open, so that the click of the radiation meter became their constant companion.

“Lift,” Ian said. He walked along the passage and pressed the call button.

“The lifts still have power?”  
Ian smiled. “The emergency lifts do; the ones to take the executives to safety when the attack comes. You can’t ask the director or the executor to take the  _stairs_.”

“Of course, how silly of me.”

Silently the lift doors slid open.

“After you,” Ian invited.

“Why thank you, sir.”

*

“We could go back to the TARDIS and make a short hop to the tower,” Susan suggested.

The Doctor smiled at her. “If I can manage the walk, you most certainly can.”

“But  _ten miles_!”

“And Ian and your sister are out of contact,” the Doctor chided. “What if they need to get back to the TARDIS in a hurry? Hmm? All because you don’t want to walk so far?”

“Well, what if  _we_  need to get back in a hurry?” Susan demanded.

“Then we shall simply have to run,” the Doctor replied.

*

The lift had no button for the basement, but there was a keyhole, and a few minutes work with the sonic screwdriver sent the car dropping into the earth. Soundlessly once more the doors slid open on another palatial foyer. The air was sterile, not stale, and the furnishings were undecayed.

“Whatever happened, it happened quickly,” Barbara mused. “Not one of them made it down here, after all these preparations. No radiation here, either,” she added. “We should look for provisions and other supplies.”

“Ever the scavenger,” Ian chuckled. “I’ll keep a look out for a trolley.”

Barbara grinned and passed him a knife. “Keep an eye out,” she cautioned.

“You too.”

She drew the pistol from her hip. “Always.”

For the better part of an hour they searched in and out of the chambers of the vast bunker, uncovering the stores and kitchen; the great reactor chamber and the linen closet; a vast wardrobe filled by a magnificent selection of clothes; even a garage, the vehicles in which – six-wheeled vans with electric motors charged from the shelter’s reactor – remained perfectly serviceable.

“I’m loading up one of these vans to drive back to the TARDIS,” Barbara called. “Ian!”

“In here.” Ian’s voice was soft and serious.

Barbara followed his voice to one of the bedrooms, and to a mirror which hung from the wall on hinges; a hidden door. Ian was sitting in a monitoring room, facing a wall of video screens.

“Security?” Barbara asked.

“Broadcast monitoring,” he replied. “Look.” He hit a control and programmes began to play, different shows on each screen. They were game shows for the most part, and as they played in fast forward, one common factor became apparent.

“Are they… killing people?”

Ian nodded. “It seems to have been a harsh world they lived in, and this building… This was the corporate headquarters of the broadcast network; the shows were broadcast from a satellite in orbit. But then…” He switched off all but one of the screens and then flipped another control and the image expanded across all twelve.

“It’s just another game show.”

“But then…” The signal cut out and the screen turned black. Ian switched to normal play speed. For a long moment there was only black, and then static snow.

“What…?”

A hard, rasping signal cut across the channel; an ugly squeal, repeating over and over.

“What is it?” Barbara asked.

“The signal is using a different kind of encoding, but the software was here to decrypt it.” Ian tapped in a string of commands. “A century ago, on day 4 of week 65 of the year 200,103CE, at 2178 hours, this is what the world heard.”

The squeal resolved into a voice, no less harsh, still screaming: “Exterminate! Exterminate!”

Barbara’s face turned pale. “Oh, God! Susan!”

*

The airlock hatch closed, sealing Susan and the Doctor into the dome. Susan held her arms away from her body and waved them around, trying to hasten the drying of the decontamination solution.

The Doctor went to a nearby computer terminal and subjected it to an assault with the sonic screwdriver. “I believe that the dome’s shielding is acting as a communications blanket,” she mused.

“Why?”

“Because my communicator isn’t working,” the Doctor replied. “Ah I’ve found a map.” The display flickered to show a diagrammatic map of the dome complex and the network of walkways connecting them. “Ten main domes, twenty smaller ones, and the tower in the centre screaming ‘restricted access’ across all channels. It seems that security systems have already detected us.” She turned up the settings on her screwdriver and the screen flickered. “That ought to take care of the monitors, but there will be people coming and the sonic screwdriver can’t do much about them. Onwards, Susan my dear; swiftly.”

A short passage led from the airlock to another door, but beyond that the dome opened out. Great rows of lights shone down from the interior surface of the dome. Tall buildings, much like those outside but unmarked by bombardment or corrosion, stood in ranks, separated by broad and tree-lined thoroughfares. One of these arcades stretched away in front of them, unbroken from the door where they stood to the far side of the dome. The lowest floor of each block was lined with shops and other places of business, while the higher storeys bore the signs of residential use.

Alongside the streets, crowds moved up and down in ordered lines, dressed in identical grey coats, their faces pale in the artificial light. Their expressions were as uniform as their clothes; bland and without passion or sentiment. 

And from their right came the steady tramp of heavy, booted feet.

“This way,” the Doctor said, drawing Susan straight ahead. “Run.”

“Won’t we stand out?”

“We already stand out!”

They ran, pushing past the shuffling lines of soulless pedestrians, who cried out in alarm.

“We need to get off the streets!” Susan cried.

The Doctor pointed. “Left! Staircase!”

They turned and fled together through a dark doorway and down a narrow staircase. They passed through a narrow atrium into a smoky cloakroom, where a girl in a red dress waited to take coats and a large man in some kind of light body armour lounged beside the inner door. 

A sign hung on the wall beside the coat-check window:

_Welcome to the Comedia.  
_

_This is a designated non-conformity zone under the meaning of the 200,146 Act of Unity and is not regulated by the Patrol. Entrance is at entrants’ own risk._

Booted feet rattled on the stairs behind them.

*

“I can’t reach them!” Barbara whispered. “Maybe…”

“Maybe they’re out of range of the TARDIS,” Ian interrupted in a tense voice. “We should get back; there may be something we can do to increase the sensitivity of the TARDIS detectors; or we could try to move the ship to the east, nearer to them.”

“Is that safe?”

Ian shrugged. “I know which controls manipulate the temporal coordinates; I should be able to move us in space alone. The rest will be trial and error. We’ll take the van,” he added. “It’ll be quicker.”

*

A hidden door opened and a young man in a smart tuxedo stepped out. The clothes were not actually anything Susan had seen before, but the lines were similar enough for her to identify formalwear.

“There you are!” he cried, seizing Susan and the Doctor by the hands and dragging them through the door behind him. “We were nearly frantic. “Francoise; attend to the Patrol, please.”

The door closed with a click, shutting out all sound from the cloakroom. In the distance they could hear laughter and applause, and their rescuer led them on towards the sounds.

“They will hang around all evening, making a nuisance of themselves,” the man sighed. “We had better get you somewhere they can see you.”

“Don’t you mean can’t see us?” Susan asked.

“Goodness, no!” the young man laughed. “If they can’t see you they’ll insist on searching. No, if you want to leave here other than in chains, my friends, you’ll have to go on stage.”

Susan went pale. “On stage?”

“I’m Anatole, the MC and owner of the Comedia. You are?”

“I am the Doctor,” the Doctor replied, “and this is Susan.”

“That will do nicely.” The young man grinned and hurried on ahead of them. He ran up a short flight of stairs, pushing past another man who was coming down. He patted the man encouragingly on the shoulder and forged on, brushing through a velvet curtain, apparently to where the applause was.

“Is that the stage?” Susan gulped.

“It’s alright,” the newcomer assured them. “The crowd… they’re not that bad.”

A harried-looking girl bustled up and began manoeuvring Susan and the Doctor up the stairs to the curtain with deft flicks of a make-up brush. “You’re on next,” she said, practically hurling powder in their faces. “You’ll look a little pale, but you won’t shine too much. Good luck; make ‘em laugh.”

From the stage they could hear the MC’s voice as he announced: “The reigning queen and crown princess of mirth! The Doctor and Sooooooo-san!”

*

Ian had Barbara drive the van around to the back of the shed. After a moment the wall swung open to reveal a garage, large enough to comfortably fit the van.

“I didn’t know that was there,” Barbara admitted.

“It wasn’t, but like I said, she’s a growing girl. I think… yes; there are communications relays to the East. I think the TARDIS can help me patch into one of them and…”

“The TARDIS can help you?” Barbara laughed. “You make it sound as though she’s alive.”

“She is,” Ian insisted. “The core of her – the coral – was a living entity. Coupled with Grandmother’s regenerative energy the core consciousness expanded, bonding with Grandmother telepathically and learning form her.

She can sense our needs as well; protecting us, healing us, even translating for us. She’s a part of us and we’re a part of her.”

“Wow. That’s beautiful, and at the same time slightly creepy.”

Ian smiled. “Well, we can walk away any time. I think it would take a while for me to stop missing her, since I’m a time sensitive.”

Barbara shook her head and took his hand. “It’s not because you’re a time sensitive. She’s amazing.”

“She is that. That’s it; we can use one of their relays to boost our signal and…” A soft hiss emerged from the speakers. “Grandmother, Susan; can you hear me?”

The hiss continued for a moment and then the Doctor’s voice broke through in a whisper: “ _I’m afraid we can’t talk now; we’re due on stage._ ”

“On stage?” Ian joggled the communicator controls. “Did I hear that right?”

“I don’t know, but she definitely said ‘we’, which means they’re both alright and  _we_  have bigger problems.” She reached out and slammed up the door control.

Ian followed her gaze. The scanner showed the deserted street, and a jeep speeding towards them, headlights blazing. Soldiers leaned out of the sides, rifles at the ready.

“Garage!” Ian gasped. “I don’t think I can control that door from here.”

They ran along the passage from the control room, turned left and carried on. They took the second right and kept going to the door at the end of another length of passage, which opened onto the TARDIS garage. The van stood in the centre of the room – which looked bigger now than it had been earlier – and the door gaped wide; wide enough for four heavily-armed soldiers to come through.

“Door!” Barbara snapped. She drew the pistol from her hip, took aim and pulled the trigger. The weapon gave a sad gurgle.

“Hostile action initiated,” the lead soldier snapped, raising his weapon. Barbara felt a chill run through her. The weapon was no conventional rifle, despite its moulded, plastic stock; the barrel was a metal tube, with eight cooling wires arranged around it. The soldier wore black armour and a domed helmet, with a full-face visor and a black-on-white bull’s-eye on the brow.

He took aim at Barbara and hissed: “Exterminate!”

*

Susan and the Doctor emerged onto the small stage of the subterranean cabaret. There was a patter of applause, but the atmosphere was muted, possibly because of the line of black armoured soldiers, their weapons held across their chests and the white bull’s-eyes on their domed helmets shining in the darkened house.

Susan eyed the weapons warily. “Are those…?”

The Doctor nodded. “Dalek gunsticks. We’d better make this good.”

“Make what good?”

“The performance. We need to be… funny.”

*

The soldier’s gunstick made a fizzing, popping sound.

“Temporal grace!” Ian called as he wrenched the door control down. “Weapons don’t work in the TARDIS!”

Barbara dropped her pistol and reached into her coat. Her hands snapped out and two knives flashed and spun, dropping the lead soldier and one of his comrades.

“Apart from those.”

*

The Doctor cleared her throat. “I say, I say, I say,” she began. “My dog’s got no nose.”

Susan looked nonplussed. “No nose?” she asked.

“That’s right! My  _smell hound_ ’s got no nose.” The Doctor looked a little desperate.  
Susan was baffled. “But if it’s got no nose, how does it smell?” she asked plaintively.

“Horrible!” the Doctor declared.

A ripple of laughter ran around the room.

“I honestly don’t think they’d heard that one,” the Doctor realised. “Susan, my dear, I recently acquired a rather nice Greek urn!”

“That’s ni… I mean, what’s a Greek urn,” Susan corrected herself, catching on.

“About fifteen credits a day!”

*

Barbara leaped across the van and kicked one of the remaining soldiers in the chest with both feet. Ian wrestled the other towards the door as best he could. Barbara stepped across and poleaxed the man with the burned-out plasma wrench and together they flung the wounded soldiers through the closing doors.

At the last moment a fifth man appeared and levelled his gunstick. Barbara waved at him, but Ian tackled her aside as an energy blast stabbed through the narrowing gap to blow a chunk off the van’s rear door.

“You can’t fire a weapon  _inside_  the TARDIS.”

“But you can fire in?”

“So it seems.”

*

“That was no lady, that was my wife!” the Doctor finished. The audience howled with laughter and even one of the soldiers applauded. “Thank you,” the Doctor said, “you’ve been a lovely audience.” She bowed and steered Susan – who was still bowing and waving enthusiastically – off the stage.

“Wonderful!” Anatole declared. “Masterful. Such fresh material!”

The Doctor laughed. “That material is older than me, but thank you. Now, if you could furnish us with suitable clothing we must try to get to the tower.”

Anatole eyed them cautiously. “I may be able to help you even more than that,” he offered.

*

“They don’t look happy,” Barbara noted, watching the scanner warily.

“You stabbed two of them,” Ian reminded her. “The former owner of this coat made a point of explaining how unhappy that sort of thing makes people.”

“What should we do?”

“For now, nothing,” Ian assured her. “Grandmother seems to have locked the flight controls, but the TARDIS is pretty much impregnable and… Oh.”

“What is… Oh.”

On the screen, a flatbed vehicle drove up. A large weapon – rather like an over-sized gunstick – was mounted on a pivot on the flatbed.

“When you say impregnable…?”

Ian nodded unhappily. “Find something to hold onto.”

Barbara looped her arm through his and gripped the console with both hands. She glanced at him and smiled fondly. “Are we going to die?” she asked.  
Ian looked grim. “We’ll be alright. She’ll protect us.”

*

Anatole took Susan and the Doctor to a parlour in one of the backstage rooms, where Francoise joined them. 

“An oppressive police state modelled on the Daleks?” the Doctor could scarcely believe it. “But you are able to gather in safety?”

“Absolute conformity is demanded by the regime, in public and in private. Only in a few, designated zones is any deviation from the arbitrary norm permitted. The fact that the Comedia is a registered non-conformity zone makes it a perfect place for us to gather,” Anatole explained.

“Us?” Susan asked through a mouthful of macaroon.

“Revolutionaries,” the Doctor explained.

Susan frowned. “But don’t they realise that?”

“Of course,” Francoise assured her. “That’s the point. We gather in the non-conformity zones, where we can be watched and contained.”

“But we have more information than they ever bargained on, and we’ve found ways to communicate, securely, between the zones. The trouble is, once you’re in you’re in; the Patrols won’t let us out again. Now, I have a nose for genuine non-conformists and you seem for real, so…”

“Anatole,” Francoise warned. “If they  _are_  genuine, this is not fair to them.”

“It doesn’t make much difference,” Anatole reminded her. “The Patrol believe they’re just non-conformists, not the intruders they were looking for, but they’ll still be kept here.”

Susan felt a surge of panic. “But we must get to the tower!” she wailed.

“And there is a way,” Anatole promised. “We have plans for a concerted assault on the Tower. Its defences are all on the outside and there are gaps. If we can get through one of those gaps then we can get all the way to the top and destroy the conformer.”

This time it was the Doctor who asked: “Conformer?”

“An atomic disseminator,” Francoise replied. “And the reason we can not succeed. Even if we were to break out of the non-conformity zones, as soon as the escape was noticed the conformer would be fired on the offending dome.”

“With what result?” the Doctor wondered.

“The deaths of everyone within the dome,” Anatole sighed. “It… happens from time to time. They move people; about a quarter of the people in each of three domes move into a fourth; a dome that is empty, but otherwise complete.”

“That’s horrible,” Susan gasped.

“And the reason the attack can never succeed,” Francoise agreed, “unless you can suggest a way of getting into the base of the Tower without going through the streets.”

*

Ian squeezed Barbara’s hand as the soldiers aimed their cannon.

“I’m still really glad I came,” Barbara told him.

Ian kissed her. “I really wish you hadn’t.”

The weapon fired, whiting out the screen. With a shudder, the central column leaped into motion. A monitor on the console blinked.

“Ian,” Barbara said softly. “What does HADS mean?”

Ian tapped the console and the TARDIS provided the answer: “Hostile Action Displacement System activated. Telepathic trace initiated.”

“Telepathic?”

“I think the TARDIS is looking for the Doctor.”

*

With a grinding, wheezing cacophony, a shed materialised on the empty stage of the Comedia. The Doctor, Susan, Francoise and Anatole ran out into the club. Francoise and Anatole stared in amazement.

“You know,” the Doctor said, “I might be able to do just that.”

*

The TARDIS could not have materialised in the upper regions of the Tower, but the base chambers were large and vaulted. The Doctor piloted the ship neatly into place and then opened the doors to let the Comedia’s non-conformist strike force out.

There were only half-a-dozen of them, but as Anatole had promised the Tower’s defenders were all outside still. Three stayed to watch the TARDIS and defend against pursuit, while Anatole, Francoise and their bouncer, Tomas, accompanied the Doctor and her companions to the conformer’s chambers.

“We need to suit up and pass through the chamber lock to the power core,” Anatole explained. “The Dalekanium core is irreplaceable; remove that and the conformer will be out of action forever.” He took out a heavy, shielded box. “We place the core in this container and…”

“Susan!” Francoise screamed, but the chamber lock was already sealed behind the girl.

Barbara grabbed the intercom while the others crowded around the observation port. “Susan; what are you doing? You need to suit up to go into a Dalekanium power chamber!”

Susan’s voice was tinny and faint through the speakers. “ _I know. I can’t wait. I’m sorry._ ”

The inner door of the lock opened and the watchers turned from the observation window, shielding their eyes as Susan’s body began to blaze with a fierce, white light. Shining like an angel she advanced on the core of the conformer until she was able to put out her hands and grasp it. Only the Doctor was able to watch as the Dalekanium core was converted and absorbed into Susan’s body.

The girl stumbled towards the chamber lock, but tripped and fell before she could activate the doors.

“Radiation level in the chamber has fallen to normal,” Francoise gasped.

“Get it open!” the Doctor insisted. As Ian and Barbara bent to lift Susan she shook hands hastily with Anatole and Francoise. “Good luck with your revolution,” she said. “And try not to kill too many people.”

“The Patrols are strong, but few. Without the conformer it will be a revolution of ideas,” Anatole assured her.

“Good, good; that is an excellent idea. But now, we must hurry. Susan needs the healing power of the TARDIS or I fear even the segments will not protect her.”


	6. The Halls of Healing

“How can she be sick?” Barbara demanded as they lay Susan in the TARDIS infirmary.

“Susan is only partially protected by the Key,” the Doctor replied. “It is as yet incomplete and the radiation levels in the core were vast.  _Without_  protection, she would have been incinerated in seconds.”

“What do we do now?” Ian demanded. “She’s sick; she can’t pilot the TARDIS in this state. How do we find the last segment and get her back to normal?”

The Doctor shook her head. “We can’t. She needs treatment, and more even than the TARDIS can provide. Let me see… 200,200… 200,200… Yes!” Her hands began to fly across the controls. “I can not yet accurately move in time, despite the recalibration of the temporal circuits, but I should be able to plot a purely spatial course, and in 200,200 there is only one place to take a person suffering from this level of radiation exposure.

Fortunately, it isn’t far.”

*

Susan woke in a crisp, neatly-turned hospital bed with a dry mouth and aches all over her body. Her head was fuzzy; too fogged and dazed to say anything except the obvious:

“Where am I?”

“St Trobadur’s.”

Susan turned her head to look at the speaker. A boy – a young man – sat by her bedside, dressed in a dark blue, silk dressing gown.

“Trobadur?”

“Patron Saint of the wealthy rich,” the boy explained. “This is one of the better centres in the Hopice.”

“Hospice?”

“You’re in the Medicaris Hospice. To be brought here you must be very rich. Or have a very interesting illness. That’s what I have,” he added. “No-one knows what’s wrong with me, so they’re paying a fortune for the privilege of finding out. Or trying to.”

Susan pushed herself upright and the boy leaned forward to arrange her pillows. His hand brushed hers and she felt a jolt like an electric shock run through her.

“I’m Susan,” she said.

“Gyles,” he replied.

“So… if they don’t know what’s wrong with you, how can they make you better?”

“Well… they can’t,” he replied. “Medicaris is a hospice, Susan. Aside from a few acute cases, every patient on this planet is dying. Some of them fast, some of us slowly, but this is where we stay.”

“Dying?” Susan’s face fell.

“Oh, not you,” he assured her. “I had a look at your chart; severe radiation poisoning. It’s nasty, but treatable.” He touched a drip feeding into her arm. “Should flush you clean in about a day, then…” He made a flying motion with his hand. “You’ll be out of my life again.”

“But you…?”

He shrugged. “Well, who knows? Maybe they’ll work out what’s wrong with me and I can be gone tomorrow. If not… Well, I’ve been sick for a while. I accepted death a long time ago.”

“That’s so sad.”

Gyles grinned. “I’ll live,” he promised.

*

Waiting for news was beginning to grate on Barbara; even Ian’s attention was wearing under this strain. She retreated to the quiet of the toilets, taking a moment to locate the correct door out of the nine available and trying not to think too hard about the unfamiliar symbols. She washed her face and stared long and hard into the mirror, until a second figure loomed up behind her.

“Are you alright?” the nurse asked.

“Fine,” Barbara replied tersely. “Or… as fine as I can be given…” She stared fixedly at the woman’s mocha skin and raven hair, and the eyes as black as polished jet. The features were different, but she was certain that she was not mistaken. “But then you know all about it, don’t you.”

“I suppose I do,” the Black Guardian agreed, “and you have no idea how tedious that can be.”

*

Ian, meanwhile, was hanging around the canteen, trying not to worry too much; trying to be strong for Barbara. Being time sensitive he felt, rather than saw, the White Guardian’s arrival, but did not look up until the figure of a dignified doctor of latish middle age sat down opposite him.

“You’ve changed your face,” he noted.

“Have I?” the Guardian asked. “It’s so hard for me to tell. My senses don’t really perceive the physical world in that kind of detail.”

“You take a broad view?”

“No; I am quite capable of seeing detail; just not of that kind.”

“I… Well, I don’t see, but I’ll accept that for now. So, are you here to help Susan?” Ian asked.

The White Guardian shook his head sadly. “Alas, I can not; not without the Key. Your Grandmother’s people were sworn never to interfere precisely because of the vast power they were capable of wielding; think how much more carefully a being of my capacity must judge his every action. Only with the Key can I enjoy, for a few, brief moments, the freedom to order matter as I see fit. Only then will I be able to predict every possible and probable outcome and so select the one most favourable.”

“So you are, in your own way, as limited as I am?” Ian asked. “That’s why you need my help.”

The White Guardian’s smile tightened, just a fraction. “Quite. But while I might need your help, Susan needs my help more. I am sure that you see that more clearly than ever.”

I can see that she needs help,” Ian conceded. “I’m not entirely convinced she needs  _your_  help, since it was you and your brother who did this to her in the first place.”

“We merely made the approach,” the White Guardian insisted, “and it was the Black Guardian who tricked your friend into taking the tracer unawares. The tracer was made by the Grace, as was the Key; they determined the nature of its function.”

Ian shrugged. “But you can help Susan?”

*

“And more to the point you  _will_  help Susan?”

“You have my word,” the Black Guardian promised. “You can trust me, Barbara; I’m a doctor.”

“You’re dressed as a nurse,” Barbara pointed out.

“Same thing; both little minds poking around at an imprecise, organic machine that they barely understand. What does a few years training matter when all is fumbling in the darkness?”

“And you’d know.”

“And I would know.”

Barbara’s next words were cut off as her communicator chimed. She glowered at the Black Guardian and then answered: “Is there news?”

“ _Susan is awake,_ ” the Doctor reported.

*

Over the next few days, Susan’s health slowly returned. Once they were sure that she was on the mend, Barbara and Ian gave her the space and time which she so desperately wanted; space and time to be alone with Gyles. They still checked in from time to time, usually in a group so as not to take too much time from the two youngsters.

“Susan, dear girl!” the Doctor called. “I hardly dared to hope you would recover so quickly!”

Susan smiled at Gyles. “I’ve had good company,” she explained.

“I do hope she hasn’t been tiring you, Gyles.”

Gyles shook his head. “It’s been wonderful,” he grinned. “First person my age they’ve put in my ward and she’s so pretty.”

Susan blushed furiously and dragged a pillow over her head.

“Sorry,” Gyles laughed. “I guess I don’t have time for embarrassment anymore.”

Susan poked her head out again. “I wish you wouldn’t…”

“It’s all right,” Gyles promised her, but with a hint of bitterness in her voice. “You’re almost better, so you’ll be going soon. We can say goodbye and I’ll be fine still.”

“That’ s not all right,” Susan whispered.

Ian coughed awkwardly. “Maybe we should…?”

Barbara nodded and the three adults shuffled uncomfortably away, leaving Susan and Gyles to a painful silence.

“I’m sorry,” Susan said at last. “I know it’s not fair, but it isn’t fair to blame me, either.”

“I know!” he snapped. “I mean, I know. It’s just so hard sometimes. I’ll really miss you.”

“And I’ll miss you,” Susan told him, “but I can’t… Oh, it’s so stupid!” she snapped. “I don’t want to go, Gyles! I don’t want to leave here, leave you, but I have to. I have to…” She broke off and leaned forward suddenly, kissing him soundly on the lips. Electricity coursed through her, like nothing she had ever felt before… except that it  _was_  like something she had felt very often.

She tried to pull away, but some force held the two of them together as their bodies began to glow.

“Oh my God,” Ian whispered.

“Oh, Susan.” Barbara ran towards her sister, but long before she reached her, Gyles had vanished, converted into a crystal segment and absorbed into Susan’s body.

“It hurts,” Susan whispered.

Ian and Barbara ran to flank Susan and take her arms as she arched her back in agony. She gave a long, agonised scream and the glow grew brighter yet. 

Before the Doctor’s eyes, the Guardians appeared. Behind Ian the White Guardian blazed like a star, reflecting Susan’s light. Behind Barbara the Black Guardian was like a shadow, sucking in the radiance of the Key.  
Susan cried out again and the glow drew together in her chest. One final, blinding pulse of light and the Key was there, a perfect, crystal cube. Susan held it with her hands on the top and bottom, while Ian and Barbara each held one side.

“Give me the Key!” the Black Guardian hissed.

“Give me the Key, Susan,” Barbara echoed. “You don’t have much time.”

“Give me the Key!” the White Guardian demanded.

“Give me the Key, Susan,” Ian echoed. “Please; it’s a matter of life and death.”

“Give me the Key!” the Guardians chorused.

“Susan!” Ian and Barbara chorused.

Susan looked desperately from left to right. She looked from her sister to her friend, from the consuming shadows to the obliterating light. Pain wracked her limbs and she cried out, a single word:  
“Doctor!”

The Key vanished; the room grew still. The light of the White Guardian dimmed and the void of the Black Guardian lightened into mere shadow.

“What…?” Ian wondered.

“How…?” Barbara gasped.

With a soft sigh, Susan collapsed onto the pillows. Ian and Barbara bent over her.

The Guardians turned as one to face the Doctor, who held the key between her outstretched hands.

“Give me the Key, Doctor,” the White Guardian said. “I have to stop time and repair the damage to the universe.”

“No!” the Black Guardian protested. “He’ll remake the cosmos in  _his_  image; perfect order, forever and ever. No change, no uncertainty; no fun!”

“Give the Key to her and there will be nothing but chaos!” the White Guardian insisted. “Mere anarchy loosed upon the world!”

“He can’t even write his own lines!”

“She’s little more than a beast!”

“Doctor, she’s dying!” Barbara pleaded.

The Doctor closed her eyes in concentration. “We are held out of time now, Barbara,” she promised. “Susan is, to all intents and purposes, frozen, until I choose to release the universe. Now, Guardians, you will repair the universal balance and…”

“If you give me the Key, Doctor…” the White Guardian began.

The Black Guardian interrupted. “No, give me the Key and…”

“I was not  _asking_!” the Doctor snapped. “ _I_  hold the Key to Time! I hold the ultimate power in the Universe and  _you_  will do as I say and  _put everything right_! Starting with young Susan.”

“I…”

“We…”

“Now!”

With ill grace, the White Guardian held out his hand. With equal reluctance, the Black Guardian seized it. There was a momentary ringing, like some distant musical chord, and then silence returned.

“Good,” the Doctor said. “Now go!”

“We…”

“Go!”

With a sound like snapping leather the two Guardians winked out of existence.

“Now, just…” The Doctor frowned in concentration, her piercing brown eyes fixed on the crystal cube. For a moment, everything seemed to freeze and then…

“What happened?” Gyles asked.

“A number of things,” the Doctor replied. “You were converted into the final segment of the Key to Time; Ian and Barbara both made the wrong choices for the right reasons; Susan made the right choice for… well, for good reasons, I hope.”

“The Doctor banished the Guardians,” Ian added.

“Well, gave them enough of a spin to give us a head start,” the Doctor laughed. “I also took the liberty of tinkering with the TARDIS stealth systems and circuit calibrations while I had the power of the cosmos in my hands. Then I put the segments back where they belonged, but without the Z-neutrino build up which made the statue a focus of violence, the hawk pendant a bad-luck charm, the warp core a ticking time bomb, the weaving sword a curse on its owners, the Dalekanium core a viable weapon power source and made you sick.”

“Made me…”

“Oh, yes,” the Doctor finished. “You’re no longer ill.”

Gyles’ face fell. “Then… what do I do? My parents signed me over to the Hospice when I was four.”

Susan slipped a hand into his. “You could come with us,” she suggested.

“That sounds a very good idea,” the Doctor agreed. “At least in the short term we should  _all_  leave Medicalis. The Guardians will find their way back eventually and neither the girl who thwarted them nor a segment of the Key will be safe when that happens.” She turned to a medical cabinet behind her and unlocked the door.

“What are you doing?” Barbara asked.

“I told you,” the Doctor said impatiently, “I tinkered with the stealth systems.” She pulled the cabinet open, revealing the console room of the TARDIS beyond. “And shifted the TARDIS a little in space.”

“It’s a medicine cabinet?”

“Looks like a medicine cabinet; fully functional chameleon circuit, you see. Now, are you coming?”

“Coming where?” Gyles asked.

“Everywhere!” Barbara replied.

“Anywhen,” Ian added.

Susan squeezed his hand and of course, he said: “Yes.”


End file.
